


Young & Menace

by EdgarAllenPoet



Series: Lucretia's Volumes [My Balance Fics] [22]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Families of Choice, Family Bonding, Gen, IPRE, Magical Age Regression, Panic Attacks, Stolen Century, Taako gets cursed and turned into a teenager, Team as Family, Teen Angst, Young Taako, baby taako, benjamin button au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:54:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 46,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22952122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdgarAllenPoet/pseuds/EdgarAllenPoet
Summary: Taako gets hit with a curse and gets turned back into a kid.  It's like all of those fun "this character is a preschooler" fics, except he gets turned into a fantasy middle schooler, which is much much worse.--EDIT: okay, fine. i'm on hiatus again. returning briefly, thanks for your patience! (7/29)
Series: Lucretia's Volumes [My Balance Fics] [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1556773
Comments: 135
Kudos: 160





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I hold the headcanon that elves age approx. 2.5x slower than humans until adulthood. That means a 40 year old elf is the same as a 16 year old human. They're physically mature by 50, mentally and magically mature by a century. Then they’re young for (seemingly) ever. Will be discussed in fic.

It started, as so many adventures do, with a little bit of thievery. Magnus isn’t aware of this at first. All he’s aware of is someone shouting his name, mere seconds before 150lbs of full-grown elf slams into him. 

It’s a nice day. This plane is temperate. Never hot enough to get hot, and never cold enough to need more than a jacket or cloak to be comfortable. The skies are clear-- a gorgeous peach that Lucretia sighs at on the deck of the Starblaster when she doesn’t think anyone’s paying attention--and the civilization is familiar. Docile. Similar to their own. They always have better cycles in places like this-- places with people that remind them of home. Hostile planes and uninhabited ones hit Magnus a bit harder, remind him so tangibly that they’re on an alien planet in a different reality running for their lives while their own home is trapped in some chaotic plane-eating vacuum storm, probably dead.

He tries not to think about it, especially not on perfect days, and Magnus’s day would be perfect if not for this quick interruption. The market they’re in is crowded, and the shop Taako had ducked into had seemed harmless enough. Merle was out there… somewhere. It was hard to find him in the crowd. Magnus had been considering some smoked meat tempting him from half a block away when Taako had nearly sent him sprawling on the dusty brick road. 

He caught Taako by the shoulders, keeping him upright as he stumbled to keep his own footing. His hat toppled off, and Magnus snatched it out of the air and squished it back onto the elf's head. Taako grabbed him by the wrist and tugged, tripping over himself and Magnus. 

“Time to go,” he hastened, and an unfamiliar voice shook the air around them.

**“How _dare you_!?” **

It was too near for Magnus’s comfort-- an unsettling combination of raspy, ancient, and baritone. From the shop Taako had darted out of came a magnificently tall man, wading in too-short but too-baggy robes and necklaces and eyes so sunken in that his face was nearly a skull. He was bald, sallow looking, gangly and a bit sick-ish.

He growled with voice like gravel being scraped with an aluminum shovel, “I’ll teach you to steal from me!” and Magnus wasn’t fast enough to yank Taako out of the way as the man lashed out, whipping some sort of magic barb at them and catching Taako across the side of the neck. 

Taako hissed in a startled breath and unearthed his wand from the ribbon on his hat. He leveled it at the stranger and tossed a furious Magic Missile at him, but while the stranger staggered back from the force of the blow with lightly singed robes, he hardly seemed to register the damage. He gathered his magic whip up into a fist, hand oozing blood where the barbs broke skin, and squeezed. Blood dripped to the ground and glimmering red magic rose into the air, both from the weapon and from… Taako. 

A ghost of Taako, a perfect outline in opaque red drifted out of his body, and two things happened very quickly. Ghost Taako slammed into the old man, and the elf Magnus was gripping firmly around the middle collapsed bonelessly and got significantly lighter in his arms. Cackling followed as their stranger seemed to shift, stature shortening to something more ordinary for a humanoid and skin pulling taught-- youthful. 

“Thanks for the time,” the guy croaked, and then he was gone. 

Magnus had half a mind to chase after him and demand some answers, but a voice startled him away from that mission. A voice with a familiar lilt, several octaves too high. A strange version of Taako said, “Wha-what? What happened?” and then he went limp again, like a puppet being cut from their strings.

Magnus yelped, lowering him gently to the ground, terrified for a minute that the guy had stolen Taako’s bones or something, but. No. Bones intact, but as Magnus removed Taako’s hat and pushed his hair out of his face he noticed two things. Taako’s ears were significantly bigger, and the rest of him was quite the opposite. 

“What?” he asked the universe, as unconcerned strangers stepped around and over them. He laid a hand on Taako’s chest-- he was breathing, and his heart was beating. His eyes darted back and forth under closed eyelids, eyebrows creased, lip curled. He had buck teeth. He was--

“Merle!” Magnus scooped Taako up far too easily-- not that it usually took much effort to lift him, but this time he nearly tossed Taako by overestimating his weight. He weighed nothing. He groaned quietly but did not stir as Magnus juggled him in his arms for a moment, wondering how to carry him. Normally he’d just toss him over his shoulder and be done with it-- Gods know this wasn’t the first time he’d had to haul either of the twins home after some kind of shenanigans-- but that felt inconsiderate now. He looked so… young. He was so small. Magnus settled for cradling Taako to his chest, head lulling against his shoulder and gangly limbs dangling in unconsciousness, as he took off into the crowd. 

He had to call Merle’s name a half-dozen more times before he finally showed himself, waddling out of the crowd with a sunflower tucked behind his ear and a scowl on his face. 

“What?” he asked, “What _what_ what? I could hear ya a block away.” 

Magnus didn’t have time for squabbling. He nudged Merle off to the side of the road, tucked against a wall and out of the way, and said, “We have a problem.” 

Merle took a long look at Magnus, then at Taako, then up at the sky for a single long exhale. “What’d he do this time?” 

That wasn’t a fair question, necessarily. They all got up to equal amounts of trouble during their travels, and sure maybe Taako had been getting up to a bit more than usual these past two cycles, but that didn’t have to mean anything. They all went through phases. 

Some phases-- Magnus thought, adjusting the now tiny elf in his arms-- were a little stranger than others. 

He crouched down and leaned against the wall to keep balance while holding Taako out for Merle to get a better look. Their teammate was normally a couple of inches shy of six feet, but the little guy he held out now couldn’t have been taller than five. Merle studied him, blinked a few slow times, and pulled the flower out from behind his ear to nibble on the stem. 

“You stole a child.” 

“No!”

“You found a child?” 

“It’s not a child!” 

“It looks like a child.” 

“It’s Taako!”

A silence followed, Merle ceasing his idle chewing and narrowing his eyes at the alleged child in front of them. “You’re certain?” he asked. 

“Pretty certain.” 

“You didn’t mix him up with anyone?” 

“He’s wearing Taako’s clothes, Merle. I had my hands on him the entire time. Some dude hit him with a magic whip-thing and he just shrunk.” 

Merle’s voice was almost too quiet to make out, a muttered, “That’s kinky…” that made Magnus gag. He felt the need to cover Taako’s ears, which was ridiculous. He was small, not infantile. Probably. But that’s what people did with kids, right?

“So this is Taako.” 

“Yeah.” 

Merle sighed and rubbed the space between his eyes. “Pan help us,” he grumbled, and that was when Taako woke up. 

He might have woken up earlier; Magnus wasn’t entirely sure. He hadn’t been watching his face. All he knew was that one second the elf had been dead weight propped up against his leg and the wall they were leaning against, and the next second Magnus caught a brutal elbow straight to the nose and Merle started shouting as Taako took off down the street. 

Magnus took off after him, wiping blood off his upper lip as an afterthought while plowing through the crowd hot on Taako’s trail. Taako was fast, light on his feet as he ducked and weaved between city-goers, somehow dexterous even in boots several sizes too big. He used his reduced height to sneak around and under people when he had to. Magnus, on the other hand, was two hundred and fifty pounds of beefy human boy. The crowd moved out of his way as he charged forward, and it was a short journey before he managed to snag Taako by the back of the robe and yank him backwards. 

Taako immediately started screaming, shrieking like a banshee as Magnus swung his tiny self up into his arms and over his shoulder. Taako screamed, flailing wildly with kicking legs and nearly bucked himself off of Magnus’s shoulder as Magnus hauled him back towards where Merle was still trying to make their way towards them. A few people cast them sideways glances as they made their way through the crowd, but far more kept their eyes ahead and didn’t even seem to notice them. 

Still, Magnus found himself jabbering some half-assed explanations as he went, making eye contact with the few strangers who bothered to look up and investigate. “A tantrum,” he said, chuckling nervously. “You know how kids are.” 

It was doubtful they even heard him over Taako, who switched from bucking and twisting to pounding his fists into Magnus’s back and trying to kick him in the gut, a constant stream of “Let me go! Let me go! Let me go! Let me go!” pouring out of him. His voice was still a touch too high, and it had a bit of a lisp to it.

By the time they made it back to Merle, Magnus was almost exhausted. “Please,” he panted, “Shut him _up_.” 

Merle jerked his head to the side, and Magnus followed him down a less crowded side street that veered off into an even less crowded back alleyway. A few businesses had back doors and trash piles in the space, but the doors were locked and the space was empty. Taako was still hollering. Merle punched the side of Magnus’s leg gently. “Crouch down, would ya.” 

Magnus crouched down, and Merle stepped around him to get a closer look at Taako. 

“Stop screaming, it’s just us, kid, geez.” 

“I’m not a kid,” Taako hissed, squirming with renewed vigor and sounding far younger than he usually did. Taako had stopped protesting Merle’s nicknames cycles ago, and besides, Merle called anyone less than two centuries old a ‘kid.’ Including Davenport. “I’m not a kid,” he repeated, “And I don’t know you, put me _down_!” 

When neither of them responded immediately, frozen by that last statement, Taako retaliated by letting out an ear-shattering scream. Magnus felt him jerk, and he glanced back over his shoulder to see Merle narrowly avoid a fist to the side of the face. He caught Taako’s hand, holding his wrist, and said, “If you hit me, I’ll hit you back.” 

The growl Taako let out did not sound elven. 

“Is he possessed?” Magnus asked. Merle hummed. 

“I don’t think so…” he said. “Why is he smaller?” 

Another jerk, followed by several more, and Merle let Taako’s wrist free. Taako balled it up in the back of Magnus’s jacket and grumbled unhappily. “I’m not _smal_ ,” he protested. “Put me _down._ ” 

Magnus asked, “You gonna run again?” 

Taako’s reply was dripping in sarcasm. “What?” he asked. “Me? No, never. Why would I run from some _total strangers who are trying to kidnap me!?_ ” He finished his statement in a shout, kicking and squirming again. Magnus sighed. Merle was unphased. 

“What’s your name?” he asked. 

“None of your business, kemosabe,” Taako spat. 

“You are Taako, aren’t cha? You’re not some random pain in the ass we’ve kidnapped, right?” 

Taako didn’t reply with words, just another shattering scream, and Merle’s hand patted Magnus’s upper arm. “Yeah, it’s Taako,” he said. Magnus raised an eyebrow. 

“How can you tell?” 

“Same mole pattern on the left wrist,” Merle reported, “Same cowlick, same gold flecks in the eyes, and he's missing his far left molar. Matches his dental records. A mimic wouldn’t know to copy details like that, not even a psychic one. Taako’s hardly aware of that shit himself.” 

“What are you _talking about?_ ” Taako screeched, and Merle looked contemplative again. "I've never been to a fucking dentist, I lost that tooth _years ago_ , and _I don't know you! Let me go!"_

“Hand me your handkerchief,” Merle said to Magnus, and after a bit of wrestling and a few solid bite marks on Merle’s hand, the three of them finally set off on a much quieter journey back to the Starblaster. 

“Maybe this place isn’t too great, after all. Nobody’s even tried to stop us.” 

Merle huffed out a gruff laugh. “They know that if they stop us they have to deal with him.” 

Taako continued to protest the whole way back. Merle dialed Davenport and told him where to meet up, and as they made their way out of the city and towards, “That one tree, with the thing on top, you remember?” Taako ranted and raved in a muffled but furious voice, mumbling around the fabric Merle had shoved into his mouth and tied against the base of his skull. 

Magnus almost felt bad. It didn’t feel right-- gagging a kid-- but then he remembered the time Taako had cast levitate on him and left him stuck against the ceiling for as long as he could keep the spell going. 

That had been a shit afternoon. Magnus considered this pretty fair revenge. 

Taako did manage to get one good kick on him, a solid boot straight between the legs, and Magnus had taken a minute nearly doubled over and wheezing to catch his breath while Merle cackled and Taako resumed his tossing-about with the vigor of a rodeo bull. 

Eventually, the Starblaster came into view, perched on top of a hill near “that one tree,” loading door lowered and open. Magnus moved quicker, jostling Taako a bit as he ran into the ship and started his search for the Captain. 

“Cap’n’port!” he called, peeking into the common room and the kitchen. Davenport popped his head out of the bridge and stepped through the door, curiosity obvious in his silent assessment of the three of them.

“Is that Taako?” Davenport asked. Taako had been suspiciously quiet and still since they’d stepped foot in the Starblaster. Magnus had fully expected Taako to lose his shit while being carried aboard, but instead the elf had frozen stock still against his shoulder. Maybe he recognized the place. Maybe he was chilling out. 

“In a way,” Merle said with a shrug. 

Davenport raised an eyebrow at Merle and then nodded at Magnus. “Set him down, then, let me get a look.” 

That was certainly a bad idea, but if Taako recognized the Starblaster, maybe he could handle standing up again. Magnus counted his blessings and set Taako down on his feet, and just as he’d fear, the second Taako was touching the ground he took off like a flash. 

“Damn it!” Magnus swore and took off after him, managing to tackle him in the narrow hallway and wrestle Taako back to the Captain, who stood there with carefully masked amusement. Magnus held Taako under his arm, supported around the middle like a sack of potatoes, and Taako responded by whining and wriggling around. 

“Taako,” Davenport said, when they were in front of him again. Taako glanced up with narrowed eyes, obviously suspicious. “Do you recognize any of us?” 

Taako bared his teeth around the gag, and Davenport considered him for a moment before reaching out and undoing the knot. Taako flinched away from him initially, a hard movement that almost made Magnus stagger a bit, but he held reluctantly still as Davenport worked the fabric free and dropped it to the floor. 

He stepped back, and Taako rubbed at his jaw, working it around to get the stiffness out of it. 

“Set him down,” Davenport said, and Magnus did so with a firm grasp in the middle of Taako’s robe in case he tried to take off again. In his new form, Taako was about half a foot taller than Merle, a little more so than Davenport, and Davenport didn’t need to incline his head nearly as far to look up at him. 

“Your name is Taako, correct?” Davenport asked, and Taako’s face screwed up in a snarl. 

He asked, “How do you know that?” in a snotty voice and crossed his arms over his chest. The movement pulled at his clothes, and Taako seemed to notice Magnus’s hold on him. He glared at Magnus over his shoulder and tried (and failed) to shake himself free. “You got a thing for me or somethin, big guy? I said get _offa me_.” 

“Not until you stop trying to run.” 

“Ha!” 

“Do you recognize any of us, Taako?” Davenport asked, while Merle circled the two of them with an observant eye and his flower stem back between his teeth. 

Taako huffed and followed Merle with an untrusting glare. “I recognize you _fuckers_ as the _bastards_ who are trying to _kidnap me_ ,” he complained, and Davenport nodded. 

“Impressive language,” he commented. “How old are you?” 

  
  


“Why the _fuck_ would I tell _you_ that!?” he demanded, jerking forward with bared teeth once more. Davenport didn’t flinch, and Magnus kept a firm hand in his robes and held him back. 

“If you tell me, I’ll get Magnus to let you go.” 

“I don’t trust you.” 

“That’s fair. I’m a stranger. It’s smart not to trust me.” 

“I’m not a child! You don’t have to tell me that,” Taako spat-- literally spat-- right at the Captains feet with balled up fists and a rigid spine. Davenport pretended not to notice. 

He said, “If you don’t want me to think of you as a child, you could tell me how old you are.” 

“That’s a trap. I’m not telling you shit.” 

Davenport hummed and nodded. “That’s fine,” he said. “Magnus has enough patience to hold you until you change your mind.” He turned to Merle at that, starting a discussion about a DNA test to confirm identity and an arcana check to start searching for a cure for whatever was going on with their transmutation specialist. 

Taako, in sharp contrast to the calm conversation in front of them, yelped out an outraged, “What? Are you _kidding me?_ ” and started struggling again. He whirled on Magnus, spitting mad with tiny fists flying, and Magnus had to grab both the kid's wrists and trap him in a straight-jacket hold against his chest to keep from getting properly decked. Taako screeched again, squirming and stomping and throwing his head back against Magnus’s chest in an attempt to get loose. He didn’t quite come up to Magnus’s shoulders like this, and it was far too easy to hold him still. Magnus felt a little bit nauseous.

“Would you like to answer my question now?” Davenport asked, and Taako let out a roar before sagging back against Magnus. There were little shudders running through him. Magnus would hug him if he thought he could get away with it, but no, Taako would probably try and claw his eyes out. 

Taako said, “No,” and blew a raspberry. 

That was when Barry entered the room. “What on Tusun was--” he paused, pushed his glasses up, asked, “Who’s that?”

Taako bit out, “Who the fuck are _you_ , four-eyes!” while Merle shook his head. 

“Woooow,” he drawled out, crossing his arms over his chest. “You don’t even recognize your girlfriend’s prepubescent identical twin brother.” 

Barry, very accustomed to the teasing at this point, started to say, “She’s not my girl--” but paused and did a double-take at the young elf in front of him. “Taako?” 

“Fuck you.” 

Barry's eyes widened. Taako sneered. Davenport looked at Merle inquisitively. “Prepubescent?” 

Merle nodded. “With ears that big? Not a chance he peaks thirty.” 

“I’m seventy-five!” 

“Might be thirty-five, if he’s a late bloomer,” Barry added, peering a little closer at him. “Man, this is eerie, he has the exact same markings.” 

“Same boy,” Merle said. He patted Taako on the upper arm, and Taako tried to spit on him. 

“The fake age you gave is still a minor,” Magnus noted out loud. He chuckled a bit. “Might as well go for all the numbers and say you’re six hundred or something.” 

Taako growled and yelled, “That’s stupid!” at max volume, voice cracking. “ _You’re_ stupid! I hate you! I _hate youI Let me go!”_ He started kicking again, so hard that his feet left the ground and Magnus had to shift to a bear hug to hold his weight without dropping him or pulling an arm out of its socket. Taako screamed and flailed and raged, and Barry took a startled step backwards. Davenport continued to study him silently, and Merle prattled on about DNA tests. 

“Can’t we do _something?_ ” Magnus asked, starting to get a bit desperate. Taako screamed, high enough to shatter glass and loud enough that Magnus didn’t hear Barry as he muttered a spell. 

And then Taako sagged, unconscious, in Magnus’s arms. 

The three of them gaped at him for a moment as Magnus hauled him up to keep him from sinking to the floor. Davenport sighed like a dying man. “Did you just cast sleep on a _child_?” 

“He was _screaming_ ,” Barry protested. “I panicked.” 

“Not really a child if it’s Taako,” Magnus mused, and Davenport grimaced. 

“He might be…. Run those tests while he’s still out. I’d rather not have to fight him to get a blood sample while he’s conscious. Confirm that this is, truly, _our_ Taako and start the work of trying to undo this fiasco.” 

Barry took Taako from Magnus’s arms, hauling the boy sized elf into his arms in a bridal carry. He asked, “Should we contact Lup?” and Davenport grew pensive. 

“Maybe not yet,” he said. “If this is Taako, and Taako truly believes himself to be… whatever age he is right now, I’m not sure how well he’ll handle seeing a Lup that doesn’t match.” 

Taako whined in his sleep, a hand clutching onto the fabric of Barry’s robe, and Barry swallowed hard. “Let’s see what we can find out, then.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry found Taako on the deck lighting small fires and wondered briefly if he was trying to burn the ship to the ground. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A disclaimer for every spell mentioned in this story-- I am double-checking the rules as I go, but I am also disregarding them as I please. Sleep is supposed to have a one-minute duration and be ineffective on elves, but it turns out, I don’t care.

Taako was far less of a nightmare boy when he was asleep. Magnus collapsed into the common room couch a few feet away from where the little guy was snoozing restlessly under a mountain of blankets. He was shivering slightly, and Barry had mumbled something during his scans about “young elves” and “thermoregulating” which Magnus translated to mean he ought to cover him with a lot of blankets before he froze to death. 

He was pretty cute in his sleep, actually. That wasn’t to say adult Taako wasn’t also cute in his sleep. Anyone was, probably, if you loved them enough, and Magnus loved his family dearly. Even if they were little shits when they got magicked into children. 

Taako slept rather restlessly. It seemed like he was always twitching or kicking or rolling over. A few times his nose twitched, and Magnus had braced himself, certain he was waking up again. He stayed down, though, quelled by the spell he was under. Sometimes his eyelids would flutter, and he’d whine very quietly, but then the magic would win and he’d go slack and boneless again. Still, every sound in the ship made his ears twitch. 

He was terribly adorable. Adult Taako was handsome, sharp lines and crooked smiles, the glow of elven magic in his cheeks. This Taako was all round cheeks and rounder eyes, huge ears and too-floppy hair that fell in his face. Once he rolled over and tucked both fists under his chin, and Magnus nearly died from it. 

Magnus nearly died again when-- while he was nearly dozing, cheek propped on his fist propped on his knee, eyelids sagging-- when Taako twitched in his sleep, and a red haze appeared over him. It was more translucent than the one had been in the market, less of a perfect replica and more of a shaky outline. Magnus watched with bated breath as the red ghost rose from Taako’s form and disappeared into the ceiling-- up and away. 

Taako shuddered silently, but he did not wake, and Magnus collapsed back against the couch with new adrenaline. Taako did not change. 

Magnus thought to himself, _huh, weird_ , and that was when Taako woke up. 

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Davenport’s eyes were just starting to bleed when a certain voice shook him out of his trance. There was no use to all of the reading he was doing, really. Barry had run all the numbers, checked the science again and again, and when that failed he checked the magic. They hadn’t pushed their luck trying to undo anything while Taako was out-- he slept more fitfully in this form than he did as an adult, and the last thing Davenport wanted was to wake him prematurely. 

Yet here he was, standing in the doorway to Davenport’s quarters with his pant legs rolled and his too-big shoes back on his feet. He was wearing his robe-- long enough to pool on the floor-- with his jacket underneath, and the way he had his arms clutched over his chest suggested he was struggling to stay warm. Davenport made a mental note to adjust the heating and turned his full attention to the boy. 

“I’m ready to leave now,” Taako said with a matter-of-fact voice suggesting he expected to get his way. Kicking and screaming, perhaps, but he expected to get it. 

Davenport wasn’t ready for all that hullabaloo to start again. He asked, “Where’s Magnus?” Magnus was the one who’d been charged with keeping an eye on him, since Magnus was the most adept at chasing the runaway down and carrying him back.

Taako responded with a scoff and a smug little grin. “Thunder Clapped his ass, my dude,” he said, then his voice grew a little more serious. “I don’t need a babysitter.” 

“You’re early into your third decade, aren’t you?” 

They’d run the math earlier, while Taako had still been asleep. Younger than thirty-five, just as Merle had suggested, but with enough mannerisms to suggest adolescence. In gnome years, old enough to be entering an apprenticeship. In human years, or at least, in Magnus speak-- “ _Ugh, middle school_.” Barry had just nodded mournfully.

Taako’s ears flattened back against his head and he asked, “What do you care?” 

“Too young to be on your own, is all,” Davenport noted. “What’s so terrible about having someone to take care of you?” 

The scowl that darkened the young elf’s face suggested there was a great deal wrong with having someone take care of him, but he didn’t follow the scowl with any words. Instead, he screwed his mouth up and clenched his fists, like he was debating whether he ought to start a fight or run away. 

This Taako was very interesting. Grown Taako spoke with unwavering confidence-- then again, grown Taako had a doctorate and flawless magic technique and a sister backing his every move. This young Taako was all flash paper. All harsh tones and mean glares and confidence that fell apart when you read the way his ears twitched and shoulders stayed tense. Ready to defend. Ready to run.

Davenport didn’t know much about the twin’s upbringing-- nobody did. Their file before the missions had been vague, mostly comprised of records from the academy that either praised their exemplary accomplishments or admonished whatever mischief they’d gotten caught up in that week. Davenport had chosen them for their wit, their tenacity, their genius, their creativity, their remarkable achievements, and their obvious strength. He’d known strength like that was hardwon. He knew this child he had standing before him-- wherever the boy was, lost in time, with whatever explanation there was for it-- was still in the midst of gaining that strength. Still in the trenches that made him strong. Pampered children didn’t flinch like that, didn’t fight like devils, didn’t demand their wants because they’d learned that wishes were so rarely granted. 

Or maybe Davenport was letting his biases overtake his observations. 

Regardless, he decided to continue while he had Taako off balance. “I appreciate your seeking permission before eloping from the ship by yourself,” he said. “We could go for a walk, if you’d like.” 

Taako’s ears twitched, eyebrows wrinkling together. He snarled, “I’m not seeking permission. You’ve warded the doors shut. Unlock them.” 

Davenport studied Taako with a patient expression. He’d learned as a youth in his clan-- and now as captain of his crew-- that dealing with people younger than you required copious amounts of patience. “That would be Barry’s handiwork, actually. He’s in the lab if you’d like to try convincing him.” 

Taako’s face turned red. His ears twitched again. “ _Fine._ ” he snapped. “I _will._ ” 

“Perhaps in a lighter tone,” he called after him. “Dr. Hallwinter is a bit more sensitive than I am.” Taako flipped him off as he stormed out the door. Davenport made sure the boy was far out of earshot before snickering quietly to himself. 

Taako always had been a spitfire. 

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Barry found Taako on the deck lighting small fires and wondered briefly if he was trying to burn the ship to the ground. He stopped himself from running in to stop him though, and was grateful for it, when Taako pulled a wand out of his pocket. It wasn’t Taako’s wand, and Barry wondered where he got it. He was wearing his own clothes, the same oversized ones he’d shown up in. The pants were synched tight at the waist and rolled at the ankles, and the shirt was tied tight all the way to the base of his throat. He was wearing his robe over it, and had the sleeves bunched to his elbows. They kept falling back over his hands, and he grumbled at them quietly as he worked. His hair was in his eyes, and his hat was set just out of reach and safe from the fire. 

Taako pointed his wand and swirled it a bit, gathering smoke with the tip and forming a series of O’s that he released up into the air. There was a wall of force wrapping around and under the ship, in case their stowaway decided to take a flying leap over the railing. Barry hadn’t bothered to form a full sphere of it, though, and the smoke had plenty of room to lift up into the atmosphere and get carried away. 

Barry wondered briefly what he was doing, and he wondered furthermore about the magic itself. Taako was a transmutation wizard, yet here he was crouching over his tiny fire and mumbling evocation incantations like a recently memorized prayer, heavily focused and gravely serious. 

He continued to form O’s, and Barry stayed silent and out of sight, watching through the doorway. A minute or two of that passed, a series of O’s in a certain pattern, and then Taako rubbed his hands over his eyes. He coughed in the smoke. He picked up his shaping again, and three new letters rose into the air. 

L.

U.

P.

Huh. 

Barry realized he’d said it aloud when Taako whipped around to face him. In a flash, he was on his feet and stumbling away from the fire, wand out of reach so quick Barry wouldn’t have known he’d had it if he hadn’t watched his spellcasting for the last ten minutes. 

“I’m not doin’ anything,” Taako blurted out. His eyes darted between Barry and the fire. “It’s contained,” he added, voice frantic, “It’s not hurtin’ anything, I swear.” 

Barry felt a little bit blindsided. He said, “It’s fine…” and watched the fire crackle between them. He couldn’t look directly at Taako. His gaze was too intense. Eyes wide, jaw set. His hands were trembling. 

He was summoning Lup. These were smoke signals, and Taako was trying to reach out to his twin. Lup, who was full-grown and on a run-of-the-mill expedition with Lucretia planetside. Where did Taako think Lup was? 

He didn’t seem to realize his situation yet, and they’d agreed earlier that they’d give it a bit of time before telling him. See what he actually knew in that magic-stricken head of his before they tried explaining anything. But when Barry took a step onto the deck-- a step closer to him-- Taako flinched and backed up, bumping into the railing of the deck. Barry froze in place. 

Grown-up Taako hadn’t ever been intimidated by him, and if this smaller Taako had any recollection of his adult life, he wouldn’t be either. He also wouldn’t be sending smoke signals to his sister. Barry took a step backward and nodded. 

“I, um… you can keep the campfire, so long as you’re careful with it.” 

Taako narrowed his eyes. “I’m not an idiot. I tend to fires all the time.” 

Barry nodded. “I trust you,” he said, and Taako’s eyes narrowed further. Barry cleared his throat. “Carry on, then,” he said and headed back down the stairs. 

He needed to find Davenport.

  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  


Taako didn’t know what to make of all of this. 

First of all, he was on a boat. A flying boat that sat in the sky, and that was absolutely strange. It wasn’t a blimp-- he was familiar with blimps-- and they weren’t in the ocean, and the whole thing was just highly suspicious. Taako hadn’t ever seen a flying boat before. He’d also never been this far off the ground. 

When he’d first found the deck of the ship and peeked over the railing, he’d nearly thrown up. The ground was so far underneath them; there was so much _space._ So much distance to fall, and it almost made him grateful for the force field floating up around him. 

The force field was another thing he couldn’t believe. Not only did they lock all the doors-- they’d _warded_ shut the cargo door they’d dragged him through in the first place, the bastards, as well as several doors in the hallway and the door to the bridge-- they also locked the door going up to the deck. It had taken Taako nearly half an hour to jimmy it open, and that was when he’d seen the sky and the ground and the… the everything. 

Everything was so messed up. For one, he’d been kidnapped by a bunch of loons. A bunch of loons who knew his name and asked him stupid-ass questions and didn’t seem to want _anything_ out of him. Beyond the initial kidnapping, they hadn’t laid a hand on him. Hadn’t hit him or touched him, hadn’t magicked him beyond making him take a nap, and when he’d woken up from that nap he’d not only had all of his clothes on but also several blankets. 

It was so absolutely bizarre. Why take him if they didn’t _want_ anything? Were they saving it? Was it something terrible? Did they need a servant? Were they going to sell him?

The ship wasn’t moving anywhere as far as he could tell, just floating far too high above the ground. That meant there was hope. That meant Taako could get back to Lup and--

And--

Well, Taako didn’t know _‘and_ ’ what. He had absolutely no clue where he was. The sky was the wrong color and there wasn’t a single sun in the sky. It was so _cold_. Everything was clouds and trees and grey skies, and the ground didn’t look right, and no matter how hard he thought about it he couldn’t think of what he and Lup had been doing before he’d been kidnapped. 

It was all blank before that big oaf grabbed him. What had they _done to him?_

That was all very strange. The captain was strange as well, talking in even tones and not getting impatient with him. Taako had been _hoping_ to reason with him, or maybe even bully him into letting him go, but there was no hope. The captain didn’t have buttons to push at all. The older humanman was strange as well, the way he looked at Taako like he was going to cry, the way he just left Taako alone with his fire on the deck. That was strange. Adults didn’t normally do things like that. He was supposed to snuff the fire out and pull on Taako’s ears and tell him not to destroy their shit. He’d looked almost afraid.

Were they afraid of him? Were these bastards racist against elves?

Taako waited anxiously after the humanman’s disappearance for someone else to come and snag him. The mean dwarf, maybe, or the human boy who seemed pretty keen to throw him around. Nobody came, though, and Taako spent twenty more minutes sending off his messages before putting his fire out and abandoning the deck. 

He considered trying to take out the wall, but it was an awfully far drop to the ground, and after so much smoke shaping he didn’t have the magic energy he’d need to break something like that down. He didn’t even know the techniques for it. 

There wasn’t much else to see on the deck, and it all made him feel rather nauseated, so Taako crept back into the ship and made his way down towards the belly. Maybe he’d try the bridge again, see if he could steer them closer to the ground without anyone noticing, or at least get a good study of the controls so he could figure that out for later.

The captain was in there, though, and Taako didn’t feel like dealing with that again. The tip-toed further, silent against the plastic-y floors of the ship and into the hallway of bedrooms again. Most of the doors were unlocked, and each of them opened to a small space with a bunk and a desk and some personal items. Taako took a stroll through each of them, marveling at the way the crewmates filled their small spaces. He’d seen the captain’s earlier, and it was like a small library with a very tidy clutter of books and maps and diagrams. Another room looked like a library, and this one was far more hectic. Stacks of books on every available surface, and after a quick flip through a few of them, Taako realized they were leather-bound journals filled with handwritten scrawling. There were sketches on the walls, and photographs pinned about that Taako didn’t bother looking too closely at. His fingers itched to steal an empty journal and keep it for himself-- something like that would cost a fortune. He would just _die_ to have one. 

He settled instead for slipping some earrings and a small handkerchief into his pockets. He’d pawn off the earrings, and Lup would like the fabric. Lup had an eye for things that were pretty, and the red flowery pattern sang like smoke and fire.

Another room he went into was a museum of knick-knacks, tiny treasures of glass and wood and clay. Taako stole a tiny doll with a fabric body and shiny eyes, no larger than the palm of his hand, but heavy. It felt like it was stuffed loosely with corn, which would be good, if they decided to starve him. Besides, he liked it. He tucked it into his waistband. 

The next room he happened upon was locked, which he found curious. He considered moving past it and onto the next room, but well, he’d always been a little too curious for his own good. That, and he’d already learned earlier that the ship’s doors weren’t impossible to unlock if he set his mind to it.

He set his mind to it, kneeling in front of the door and stabbing at it for several moments before hearing the tell-tale _click, click, click, pop!_ of the bolt lining up properly. He leaped back to his feet and shoved the door in, swinging his weight into it as he went, but when he caught sight of the room he stopped dead in his tracks. 

It was _beautiful_. This one held bunk beds instead of a single bed, and each was draped with curtains of scarves and beautiful tapestries. There were bottles glistening in the small port window, little canisters of powders and tubes of paints decorating a shelf that also housed arcana texts Taako could only dream of cracking open. He danced his fingertips over the walls, over the linens, he had to stop himself from diving into the soft-looking pillows on the bottom bunk. The closet housed robes and skirts and fabrics that glistened. He buried his face into a sweater that smelled like firewood and cinnamon and reminded himself that stealing it would be far too obvious. 

He crept in farther, getting a closer look at the desk and its contents before his eye caught on some pictures stuck to the walls. Some were just of the crew, or so Taako assumed. They were all wearing the gaudy red outfits Taako had woken up in, and he recognized the dwarf and the captain and the humanmen. 

There were other pictures as well, and something about them troubled Taako. It was a picture of twins-- like him and Lup-- both blonde and dark-skinned and freckled-- like him and Lup. Both elves. They smiled out from the photos, and Taako’s stomach turned over. 

It was… it was uncanny. It was impossible, but they looked _just like them._ Just like older versions of them. 

Something was really wack about this. Taako tore his attention away, instead running his fingers over the makeups and slipping the prettiest glitter he could find into his pocket, but the elves’ eyes bored into him. He studied the photo again, trying to talk himself out of this delusion. 

He needed to get back to Lup. 

Taako left the room and abandoned the hallway without checking the others, too out-of-it to remember the close the door behind him as he went. He made his way back through the halls until he found that common room area he’d woken up in before, with the couches and the pillows and the big screen propped in the corner. Those screens cost a fortune. He’d been shanghaied by fancy pants, apparently. 

He stopped in the doorway, peeking through at the sound of arguing. 

“We can’t just tell him!” the younger humanman exclaimed. “He has no idea. You guys didn’t see the look on his face when it hit. There was no recognition there. I might as well have been a stranger!”

His voice was big and booming when he shouted like this, and it made Taako feel shaky. The older one sighed heavily and rubbed at his forehead, pushing his glasses and his hair askew.

“He thinks we’re keeping him _hostage,_ Magnus. He’s terrified. We can’t just not say anything.” 

“What, you want us to make friends with the little fucker?” The dwarf laughed harshly as he said it, shaking his head. “Let me take another crack at him, there has to be something Pan can do to set this right, isn’t there?” 

Taako grimaced at the idea, and the glassesman sighed again. “I don’t think this magic’s reversible. I saw something in the aura about progression, uh, _maybe?_ But this is foreign magic on a foreign planet, and I have absolutely no clue what we’re actually dealing with here.” 

“So he’s a kid then?” Magnus said. “He’s just a kid and we’re stuck dealing with him the rest of the cycle.”

“Unless we murder him.” Taako really did not like this dwarf. He’d have to keep an eye on him. 

“No.” 

“Then what do you suggest we do with him? I’m not babysitting!”

“We’re going to have to…” 

Taako had been feeling lost since the moment he’d gotten dragged on the ship. Kidnapping he could understand, but these people were too weird to muster. They talked weird, and they acted weird, and this conversation was doing nothing but push Taako further and further into the weeds. He was getting a headache. He reached into his pocket and stroked at one of the scarves he’d snatched, comforted by the water-soft feeling of silk under his thumb. Lup was going to love it. 

“Okay genius, tell me this then,” the dwarf spoke again, voice thundery. The glassesman rolled his eyes at him. He said, “When are we going to call Lup?” and Taako’s blood ran cold. 

He lost his vision for a second, as it flashed black and then faded back in. He gripped onto the doorframe to keep his balance as he stumbled, and the movement was enough to alert the room of his attention. They whipped around to face him. Taako’s heart was pounding somewhere in the middle of his throat, and his hands were back to shaking. Lup. They knew about Lup. Lup was…. The pictures he’d found…. They were.

Taako couldn’t make sense of it. He also couldn’t feel his hands. He felt a sickening wave of panic wash over him as his captors stared, gape-mouthed. 

“Good goin’, Merle,” Magnus complained, smacking the dwarf upside the head. Merle turned around to swat back at him, bitching that he _‘didn’t know the kid was listening, Jesus_ ,’ while the glassesman just stared, panic-stricken eyes behind lenses, holding his breath. 

“Taako, how much did you hear--” he started to ask, but Taako didn’t feel like answering anyone’s questions. 

He swallowed down his nausea and balled up his fists, steeling himself to the situation. He didn’t know what to make of all of this, but he was going to get some fucking answers.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taako makes a run for it, Magnus goes overboard, Lup finds a doppelganger, and Barry can't keep a healthy sleep schedule to save his life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: misgendering  
> There is a brief moment of misgendering early on in the chapter, but it leads to a very sweet conversation between Lup and Taako a few pages later. There's no transphobia, and nothing insensitive. It's how I imagine talking to a younger version of myself would go, and honestly, it goes really well. Just didn't want anyone to be startled by it.

Davenport had been doing a pretty decent job of tuning out the argument from the bridge of the ship when it suddenly went silent, and if Davenport had learned anything in his life, it’s that sudden stricken silence like that always warranted investigation. You could deal with the mess as it happened, or you could procrastinate it for later, but no matter what, something was going to demand your attention. 

Considering their recent turn of events on board, he decided to go for the prior. 

He’d made it two steps down the hallway when Taako started shouting. He heard yelling from the young man, and pleading from the other three crew members on board, and he hurried his pace a little. He came to the mouth of the room to see Taako standing just inside, fists balled up, vibrating with rage. 

Merle was approaching carefully, holding his hands out like he was trying not to spook an animal, but Taako was holding a wand between them in an iron grip and baring his teeth. There were tears in his eyes. As Merle continued to say “Just calm down a little and we can explain, I know you must have a lotta questions, we’re going to explain--” Taako burst out in a furious roar. 

“Don’t _patronize me_!” he shouted. “You _said_ Lup! Tell me how you know Lup!” 

“There’s been a bit of a mix-up, buddy--” Merle tried to say, but Taako was having none of it. 

He didn’t seem to notice Barry creeping closer to him, shooting panicked looks at Davenport. He didn’t seem to notice Davenport either. In fact, he squeezed his eyes shut as he nearly screamed, “ _I’m not your buddy! I_ **_want my brother!_ **”

And as was the tell-tale sign of trouble, the room dropped silent again. Davenport was at a loss for what to say, trying to sort through the factors in his mind and determine where to start the story. This child before them was lost, scared out of his mind, and terribly confused. Davenport had put off contacting Lup in the first place because he’d been unsure how Taako would handle seeing his identical twin decades older than him. Lup was on a pretty immersive mission planet-side and would likely be preoccupied most of the cycle. It would have been no trouble at all to ask her to remain until the end of the cycle, if only to spare young Taako a bit of unnecessary distress. 

Too late for that, it seemed. 

Davenport didn’t know how to explain, though. How to calm the boy and explain their monumental situation all at once, let alone how to explain their yearly apocalypse at the hands of the Hunger to a child at all. They were nearly twenty-years into this personal nightmare, and Davenport could still hardly wrap his mind around it. 

Taako didn’t wait for an explanation, though. Magnus was the first to try and say anything-- something placating and meaningless, really-- but as soon as he did Taako shoved out of the room and ran. Davenport hit the wall in his hurry to get out of the way, because even in this younger form, Taako was still a good bit larger than he was. A mere second later, though, he caught his footing and took off after the child. 

Magnus recovered quicker than he did, barrelling down the hallway and up to the deck after him, Barry hot on his tail, with Davenport and Merle following behind. They all crashed onto the deck, and it was there that several things happened nearly at once. 

First, Taako shouted a spell, and with those words he took three bounding leaps into the air. A great burst of wind at his back made his robes billow as he sprinted, up and _up_ , to the edge of the barrier they’d created and over, hat flying off of his head as he went. 

Second, by the time Davenport realized what the kid was doing, Barry had already started flinging spell components from his pockets. He juggled a loadstone and a small sack of dust, managing to pinch both between his fingers and flick, destroying the wall around them with a deafening _bang!_

But magic could only be so strong, and while Taako was able to clear the wall fine, he didn’t have the finesse to catch himself on the way down. He slipped, began to plummet, Davenport had half of a spell out of his mouth when Magnus threw himself over the edge of the ship. 

“Catch me!” he yelled, and Barry ran to the edge with _levitate_ already leaving his mouth, leather bracelet torn from his wrist and clutched tight. Merle grabbed Barry by the back of the shirt to keep him from flying over the edge of the ship himself. Magnus slammed into Taako mid-air, Barry caught them both in the grasp of his magic, and Davenport took off for the bridge so he could lower the Starblaster to the ground. 

Once they were settled, the action continued on outside. Davenport emerged seconds after Magnus and Taako finally hit the ground, Barry panting with exertion as he leapt overboard and feather-fell gracefully to the ground. Magnus was trying to subdue Taako, it seemed, but he failed with Taako got his wand between the two of them and shot three magic missiles into Magnus’s chest. 

They went flying in opposite directions, Magnus hitting the ground with a miserable yelp and landing in a heap, Taako hitting the ground running and disappearing off into the woods. Merle appeared at Davenport’s elbow, hands against his back like it was bothering him. 

He said, “This kid is a pain in the ass,” before jogging over to Magnus, who was conscious but dazed and had not tried to sit up yet. Davenport stared off into the woods where Taako had disappeared, drafting a plan of action, when Barry sidled up next to him. He was retying the leather band around his wrist, tucking his other spell components away. He was sweating and red-faced, had pushed his glasses up to the crown of his head and had his hair all rucked up around it.

“I’ve heard how magical young elves are, but this is ridiculous,” he said. “Think he’s learned anything high level?”

Davenport wasn’t sure. “Hard to say. Is this the magic he had at that age, or has he retained his full-grown capabilities? We could reason by now the spell affected his body and his mind, but there’s no speaking for the soul quite yet.”

Barry was silent for a moment, before replying, “Then we’re fucked,” which startled a laugh out of Davenport. 

Yeah, they just might be. 

He and Barry went to help peel Magnus up off the ground and dragged him back on board to discuss their plan. Magnus would stay behind on the ship, keep it ready to take off and keep the comm’s open. He would also reach out to the girls in town. Magnus tried to protest, but even he knew that he wasn’t in any real shape to go chasing their Taako through the woods. 

Merle, Davenport, and Barry would split up to look for him. Merle and Davenport together, so that their combination of clerical and illusory magic might balance out against their prey, and Barry on his own. He’d proven enough in battle that he’d be capable of holding his own against Taako if necessary, adolescent or otherwise. They’d reconvene at sunset, and if they hadn’t found him yet, well…

They’d reconstruct their plan when they had to. With any luck, Lup and Lucretia would be back by then, and Lup would have a better chance of finding her brother than anyone. 

  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  


“I’m sure he won’t mind too much,” Lucretia was saying as they trudged through the forest on their marked path back towards the Starblaster. Simple charred streaks on the tree bark marked the way back, a precaution after that time with the Swallowing Forest a few cycles ago. The deeper they’d gone there, the taller the trees grew, the darker the air and the more disorienting time became. That mistake had been easy to learn from.

Lup shrugged and shook her hair free from the way it had been pinned, winding it up tight and sticking it up again on the back of her head. “It’ll be fine,” she agreed. “He seems rather keen on me, and if the look in his eyes when I said goodbye means anything, then he’ll definitely agree to see me again.” 

“How long before we get the Light, you think?” 

Lup’s mouth quirked up in a snickering laugh. “Hopefully before he proposes.” 

When they had first gone planetside towards where they believed the Light of Creation was being kept, they had planned on simply convincing the oligarchs to hand it over, perhaps engaging them academically to arrange something. The people were strange, though, closed off and hardly communicable. Lup had managed to catch the interest of one of the princes, one who was both of age and still single, a young man who sighed wistfully about romantic endeavors and a more adventurous world. Lup beguiled him with stories of her own adventures, stories Lucretia supplemented with her journals and her memory, and the prince found them absolutely fanciful. 

Lup didn’t mind the arrangement. She rarely sought out company, and the man was cute. Pretty, fancy, _clean_ in a way that sang of royalty. Lup didn’t mind indulging someone pretty once in a while especially not when it gave her limitless access to the royal libraries and provided plenty of situations for her and Lucretia to laugh about in the evenings. 

This cycle, Lup decided, was one of her favorites. 

So it proved that something absolutely bizarre would come around and disrupt it. Lup wasn’t sure what the situation was quite yet; all she knew was that smoke circles like that had only ever meant trouble when they were young. Meant ‘ _I can’t get to you, but I’m alive_ ,’ and any message that had to specify ‘I _am alive’_ was not one that came in favorable circumstances. 

That, and it had been decades. Decades in the Starblaster and decades on Tusun since they had communicated that way. Long before university and the IPRE. They had been _children_ when they’d last used those sorts of messages. Back in their caravan days. 

So Lup felt a bit of anxiety churning in her chest as they made their way back. She’d been quick about excusing them, promising a speedy return and dragging Lucretia off with her. Maybe they wouldn’t return. Maybe they’d lose favor and their chance at attaining the Light. And sure, Lup wanted to save this world, but this was her _brother_. She had to be sure. 

“This way,” Lucretia tugged on her elbow, and Lup followed, shaking herself out of her thoughts. Whatever it was, it could be dealt with. Twenty years into the end of the world, and they hadn’t been dealt anything they couldn’t handle. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was a joke.

If Taako was horsing around, Lup was going to kick his ass. 

She couldn’t be sure, though, and every few minutes her comm would crackle to life in her pocket again, Magnus’s voice not quite coming through as he tried to reach them. Lup frowned at the thing and banged it against her palm a few times, trying to jostle it into working. She had no luck. 

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Lucretia soothed as they walked. She’d pulled a small journal out and was scratching out something on the page. Lup peeked and saw her own messy sketch of the smoke circles. “I’ll want to know more about this later, if you’re willing to share. The kinds of circumstances you devised them for, that kind of thing.” 

Lup nodded. She didn’t mind sharing, especially not with Lucretia’s well-meaning curiosity. “Mostly runaway stuff,” she said, and Lucretia hummed like that was an ordinary thing to say. 

And then she paused, scratching stopping as she glanced around. Lup’s ears flicked towards the sound of rustling leaves, the type of noise distinct to someone walking. When they stopped, the noise stopped. Lucretia glanced at her sideways. 

They were being followed.

They started walking again, Lucretia trading her journal and pen for her wand, Lup casually slipping her hand into the pocket of her jacket to grasp her own. The noises picked up again, and Lup listened with sharp ears as their stalker snuck around them in a wide circle, going around, and around, until--

A figure in red leapt into their path as they reached the top of a rolling hill. They jumped out so quickly that they were hard to see clearly, and Lup almost thought it was Merle playing some sort of trick on them, but no, it was a young elf. Not quite five feet tall and hiding inside one of their blazing red robes, the IPRE insignia on the lapel. He glared at them with gritted teeth and a wand clutched tightly in front of him, but Lup could tell from looking at him that he was absolutely exhausted magically. 

“I need to ask you some questions,” the kid said, wand shaking in his hand but voice resolute.

It was strange to be threatened by a child who was wearing their clothes in the middle of the woods. It was stranger, however, that when Lup looked at this child she was almost certain she was looking at herself. 

Same hair. Same skin. Same freckles and eyes and face. Like looking at a twin.

Like looking at Taako. 

“Taako?” she asked, and something flashed in Taako’s eyes that gave him away, though he didn’t lower his wand or show any sign of peace. 

He asked, “Lup?” and she could have laughed. She asked hers in an ‘ _I can’t believe what I’m looking at’_ way, and the way he asked his said ‘ _I’m not actually sure who you are._ ’

“Of course, babe,” she said, trying to puzzle through what she was looking at. “Who else could I be?” 

Taako was about nine decades too young and a foot and a half too short. He was swimming in his clothes and hiding behind a scowl, and he was the spitting image of himself at whatever age he was. He was also terrified, like that time they’d gotten torn apart and shipped off to different homes, and Taako had found his way across town to Lup’s bedroom window and climbed on through in the middle of the night. He’d come in with a bruise on his face and tears in his eyes, and they’d curled up in bed to rest for a few hours before fleeing again in the morning. 

They’d been about twenty-three years old. Younger than he was now, but it had taken Taako a long, long time to stop looking scared.

“Do you remember Lucretia?” Lup asked, noticing the suspicious looks he was throwing their way. Lucretia darted her eyes between the twins before smiling at the younger one and waving shyly. “She’s a friend.” 

Lucretia nodded and put her wand away. “Nice to meet you.” Taako’s ears twitched a little. 

He turned his attention back to Lup and asked, “How do I know you’re actually Lup?”

When Lup responded, it was in a bastardized version of Elvish they had devised when they were younger, their own language. Nobody else had ever learned it. Barry had tried, after Magnus had pointed out that it wasn’t actually Elvish. She said, “ _Nobody but us gets to look this good,_ ” and the tension drained from Taako’s shoulders like it was being rinsed off of him. He pulled the wand to his chest instead of aiming it for an attack, clutching it like a security blanket, and responded in kind. 

_“Why are you old?”_

“ _Why are_ you _young?”_

Taako considered this while gnawing on his bottom lip, before finally tilting his head to the side and kicking a bit at the dirt underneath him. “ _I think I’m supposed to be older. The dumbasses who kidnapped me acted like I was supposed to know them, and everything has been weird in a_ major _way.”_

_“You were kidnapped?”_

“ _By a bunch of loonie toons._ ” 

“ _Is that why you made the smoke circles?”_

_“I was trying to find you.”_

When Lucretia spoke, Taako flinched and turned his full attention to her, eyes pointed and ears tucked back. He froze like he was about to run. She asked, “Is that Elvish?”

Lup said, “Sort of kind of.” 

“ _I don’t like her,”_ Taako said, and Lup rolled her eyes. 

“ _She’s nice._ ” 

“ _She’s looking at me like a science experiment.”_

“What is he saying?” 

Lup glanced cautiously between Lucretia and her brother. More than anything, she wanted to haul ass back to the Starblaster and get some real answers. Age Taako back up and get this all settled and normal again. But Taako had that look in his eyes that suggested too much poking and prodding was going to nudge him into a full-on meltdown, and the crew had a certain knack for poking and prodding. 

Lup leaned her elbow on Lucretia’s shoulder and propped her chin up on her head, smushing her hair down. Lucretia bore it patiently. 

“Head on back to the ship and tell the boys we’re on our way?” she asked, sending Taako half a grin that he studied skeptically. He definitely didn’t trust her yet, and yeah that sucked, but she might not either at thirty-something years old. 

Lucretia agreed and continued on their path towards the Starblaster, stepping politely around Taako and disappearing over the crest of the hill and between the trees. Taako stood there, studying Lup for a long moment before Lup led him away to a fallen log she’d noticed a short while ago. They sat on it, and Lup rustled around in her bag while Taako bounced a bit on the branch and swung his feet in the air and pretended not to watch Lup diligently from the corner of his eye.

She found what she’d been looking for-- a small sack of jerky and dried fruit she kept stowed for munching moments-- and held it out to him. He only hesitated for a few seconds before snatching it out of her hand and starting to pick through it.

“So how old am I supposed to be?” he asked eventually, speaking Common around a cheekful of spongy dried apples. Lup reached into the bag with careful, slow movements, and snagged a bit of the snack for herself. She pinched a raisin between two fingernails and held it up to the light. Green. Gross. She ate it. 

“You were one hundred twenty-two a week ago,” she said. “Pretty surprised to see you minified, not gonna lie.”

Taako hummed and adjusted the way his sleeves were rolled up, putting a great deal of attention into them. He asked, “Are we still twins?” 

She laughed. “Yeah, pretty sure there’s no changing that,” and he hummed again. He switched from fidgeting with his robes to fidgeting with little items he pulled out of his pockets. Lup tried not to make it obvious she was watching, pretending to watch the forest, as he unearthed a headscarf that belonged to Lucretia and wound it around his knuckles. Unwound it. Wound it up again. 

“Why are you a girl?” he asked, not meeting her eyes as he did so. Lup had to pause for a second. She hadn’t been expecting that. 

It had been so long since she’d had to field those questions. Passing had never been a terrible hardship for her since elves were pretty ambiguous anyways, and once she and Taako got the magic right there was nothing to be mistaken anyways. It hadn’t been a grand secret, but the older she got, the less people figured it out. She’d told everyone in their crew a few cycles into the mission, knowing that it could come to light, and if they were going to know she’d rather be the one who told them. 

Hearing questions about it after all these years, from Taako of all people, had her reeling a bit. She stole more food from the sack and gnawed on it to think. “I’ve always been a girl, in a way,” she decided. “We’re twelve decades old now, so it’s like, old news, but I told you back when we were thirty-seven. We were traveling with that circus, with these gorgeous acrobats and trapeze artists. They taught us all kinds of fancy aerial flips and things, and some of the girls were like me, y’know? They helped me figure some things out.” 

Taako nodded like that made sense and chewed on his thumb. “I don’t remember that circus,” he said. “I for sure can’t do any backflips or anything. I don’t think I’m thirty-seven yet.” 

Lup nodded, dragged the toes of her boots in the dirt. “Thirty-seven was a good year.” 

Taako unwound the scarf he was fussing with and held it out to her. He said, “I got this for you.” 

“Stole it, you mean,” she replied, taking it and tying it around her wrist with a happy grin. Lucretia wouldn’t mind, probably. Taako’s smile was small and devious. 

“Call it what you want,” he said, and then there was a heavy-feeling pause. 

“You didn’t have to wait so long to tell me, I would have listened earlier,” Taako added after a moment, pushing the bag of snacks into her hands and tipping over on the branch, falling all the way back so he was hanging from his knees and his hair was dangling on the forest floor picking up leaves. “I’m not that surprised,” he said. “You’re Lup. It makes sense, y’know? You’ve always been Lup.” 

If Lup were more of a sap, she would have teared up over that. Instead, she leaned over the branch to smack her palm against his tummy, making him squawk and flail and fall from the branch in a heap while she cackled at him. If she learned anything from Magnus Burnsides, it was that the best way to bounce back from an emotional conversation was with a healthy dose of horseplay.

She grinned down at him and said, “Maybe I like having you little. You’re easier to pick on this way.” He retaliated by scrambling up off the ground and pouncing on her, knocking them both down, and true to her word it was almost nothing to sit on his legs and dig her fingers into his ribs, tickling until he started screaming bloody murder and she decided to relent before somebody took notice and came to save him. 

She rolled off of him and collapsed on her back, lying shoulder to shoulder with him while he wheezed for air and flailed around like a fish. “You’re the meanest sister ever,” he complained, and she grinned and grasped his hand in her own. It was smaller. That was very strange. 

All things considered, she was glad he was coping as well as he was. Glad that she’d managed to touch him and play with him and he’d _let her_ , he’d _relaxed_. Taako never did well with touch, not when it wasn’t Lup. He’d loosened up to Magnus eventually-- because being friends with Magnus sort of demanded it-- but she’d been worried since realizing he didn’t recognize her that he would treat her like a stranger. 

He wasn’t, though. There was a lot of truth to what she’d said-- they were twins, and they’d always be twins. There was no changing that. 

“We need to return to the ship before nightfall,” she said eventually, heaving herself into a sitting position and stretching her arms above her head. She glanced down to find Taako staring at her with a hard expression and tightly crossed arms. “What?” 

“ _I don’t want to go back there,_ ” he answered. “ _They don’t like me._ ” 

_“Of course they like you,_ goofus.” 

“How would _you_ know, dingus?”

“They’re our family,” Lup told him decidedly, squeezing his arm in a comforting gesture. “They love us, and they love you. They’re just a whole bunch of weirdos. They’re probably losing their minds that you’re little.” 

“I’m not _little_ ,” he complained. “I’m not some kinda baby, y’know. I’m a hundred and twenty years old.”

“In theory.” 

Taako glared at her. 

“If you’re really a hundred and twenty, then you’re far too old to be afraid of strangers,” she told him. “They’re nice. I’ll make them be nice. If they’re not nice, I’ll kick their asses.” 

“What if I wasn’t nice to them either?” he asked her, and she let herself laugh this time. She grabbed his hands and hauled him up to his feet. He was far too light. She could have lifted him into the air.

“They’re plenty used to that by now,” she told him. “You’re _Taako._ ” 

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  


Finding out their comm’s didn’t work on this plane while deep into the forest around sunset was not the situation Barry would have hoped for. He gave himself exactly fifteen seconds to stare in dismay at his crackling and useless comm unit before heaving a great sigh and turning on heel to head back towards the Starblaster. 

He was having the longest day. He was _exhausted_. And Taako, for all he knew, was still running around the woods. He could be out there all night, and yeah the twins were resilient _now_ \-- when it came to survival situations, they were tied with Merle for most knowledgeable and most likely to survive in the woods alone-- but that was _now_ . Barry had no clue when they’d learned what they knew, because it wasn’t like the twins _talked about_ their past, and as far as they could tell Taako had been full-on time-warped back to his early adolescence. 

What if he knew nothing? What if he was just a helpless kid alone in the woods, and Barry was turning back early because the sun was setting, and Taako would be alone out there all night freezing to death? 

Barry would get back to the Starblaster, if nothing else. If Taako wasn’t back, he’d head on out again. Maybe drag Magnus out with him, if he was feeling better. Barry would feel better about this nighttime adventure if he brought someone sturdy with him. 

When he returned to the Starblaster, he found it docked on the ground and fully illuminated. Lights were on in every room, and the thrum of magic emanated from it and pulsed softly in Barry’s chest. It made him feel at ease. 

Once on board, he followed the sound of conversation to the common room where he found everyone spread out in their usual display on the couches. He breathed a sigh of relief when his eyes landed on Taako, tucked securely against Lup’s side while she played idly with his hair. His eyelids were drooping, but they snapped back open as Barry paused in the doorway, watching him diligently. 

Lup and Magnus were mid-argument, voices friendly and grins teasing. Magnus was sitting as far away as the room would allow, with Davenport and Merle between him and the twins, and Lucretia was sitting cross-legged on the floor, wearing a blanket around her shoulders and glancing up every so often to study Taako for a moment before returning to her sketch. 

Lup declared, “I knew you were the one traumatizing my brother, Burnsides!” 

Magnus squawked and hollered back, “ _He_ was the one traumatizing _me!_ ” 

“Grow up, hombre, he’s a baby.”

“I am _not_ \--”

“He did throw himself off the Starblaster, though,” Barry noted, jumping into the conversation. Taako whipped his head towards him and sat up straight, but Lup just wrapped her arm around his shoulders and yanked him back down next to her. Magnus laughed, loud and boisterous, and Davenport rolled his eyes. 

“They both did, if I’m remembering correctly,” he said with the tone of voice that meant he was pretending not to be petty. He was captain. That was beneath him. Magnus gasped. 

“Dad’n’port. You’re calling me out like this? You come into _my_ home--” 

“If you didn’t throw yourself off the Starblaster, then I’ll happily take my healing spell back,” Merle said, and this time Magnus rolled his eyes. 

He said, “That’s not even how it _works_.”

Meanwhile, Barry was letting himself be distracted by the twin’s quieter, private conversation. Their language was not an easy one to understand-- a complicated mix of children’s Elven, Pig Latin, and actual _Latin_. Barry was disgustingly unpracticed in Elven, let alone the children’s dialect, and his experience with Latin didn’t exactly aid in every day conversations.

Still, he caught a few pieces of the conversation: 

“ _Want…. Tired….”_

_“Little time…. Manners….”_

_“Fuck that.”_

Barry let a laugh slip out, and both twins turned to him with perked ears. Taako glowered. Lup quirked an eyebrow. She said, “You’re getting too clever for your own good, Bluejeans.”

“Ought to head to bed, if you’re tired,” Barry said, and Taako’s reply came with tightly crossed arms. 

“If I say no are you gonna hex me again?” he snarked, and Lup knocked her knee against his. 

“ _Manners,_ ” she hissed, or at least, he was pretty sure of it. 

“ _No_.”

“You cast sleep on a kid, Bluejeans? That’s brutal.” 

Lup was grinning at him, but Barry still felt his face heat up. Davenport was definitely laughing at him, not outwardly but with his eyes. Barry stammered for a second before admitting defeat. “I-- No, I didn’t-- he was-- It’s-- I’m going to bed.” 

“Think Taako’s gonna make another ghost tonight?” he heard Magnus ask as he headed off down the hall, and he stopped in his tracks to double-back into the room. 

“He made a ghost?” he asked, darting back in and startling Magnus into jumping. “What do you mean ‘he made a ghost’?” 

Magnus blinked a few times, seeming to realize that everyone was now staring at him with a new intensity-- except for Taako, who seemed unconcerned. Magnus gaped for a moment before turning to Barry and saying, “Like, a red spectral outline. He was sleeping, and it floated out of him and up into the ceiling. Thought it was some kinda magical after-effect.” 

Magical after-effect certainly, and maybe a very important one. Barry thought through everything they had figured out so far, which was tragically very little. The science was incomprehensible. Everything about Taako seemed healthy and intact-- though a little malnourished, he’d have to look into that-- and nothing was functioning unusually. He couldn’t see down to a cellular level, obviously. Couldn’t analyze the proteins or metabolism, but the DNA scan had proved this was certainly still _their_ Taako, little or otherwise. 

The magic was just as garbled: a bunch of symbols he hardly recognized in a pattern very different than their own back home. A lot of mumbo-jumbo about time and retracing, and a few things about progression that he still didn’t understand. As far as he’d figured though, Taako had shrunken down, and that was that. He’d thought that was the _end of it_. He didn’t know what it meant if Taako was spitting out ghosts. 

“What’re you thinking, Barold?” Lup asked, and Barry realized he’d been spacing out. He shook himself out of it. 

“Maybe nothing. Taako, did you feel anything when that happened?” 

Taako squished impossibly closer into Lup’s side and clenched his fists in the material of his robe. He said, “I don’t know anything about ghosts, homie.” 

“If you notice any, will you tell me?” 

“I’m not a narc.” 

“Uh… what?” 

“He’ll tell you.” 

Taako turned his glare to his sister. “I won’t.”

“You _will_ , what if it’s dangerous, huh?” 

Taako wrinkled his nose up. “ _He’s_ dangerous. He has a science lab and there’s dead things in it, the whole thing smells like formaldehyde.” 

“Then tell Merle,” Lup said, and Taako studied the dwarf for a moment. His lip curled up. 

“I’ll tell the humanman,” he grumbled, and Merle looked offended. 

“Hey!” 

Taako stood up quickly and grabbed Lup’s wrist as he went, latching on and pulling her with him. “I’m tired,” he said to the room at large, eyes fluttering around the floor before settling on Davenport. He kept eye contact. “I’m ready to go to sleep now.” 

Davenport nodded. “Lup will show you where your room is,” he said. He hopped down from the couch and clapped his hands together. Lucretia jumped a bit. She’d been very preoccupied with her work. “It’s about time we all head to bed for the night. It has been a long and eventful day. We can discuss our next steps over breakfast in the morning.” 

He departed in the direction of his quarters, while Magnus slumped over on the couch and Merle went to help Lucretia to her feet. Lup and Taako disappeared off down the hallway, and Barry wondered what he ought to do next. 

Red ghosts…. He could do some more reading, look over the runes again, see if he’d missed anything.

A hand patting him on the hip drew him out of his thoughts, and Barry blinked down at Merle. “To bed with you,” Merle said. “The boy is fine, the science can wait.” 

“We don’t know that,” Barry countered. “What if we’re on a timer?” 

“Then we’ll figure it out at breakfast. Don’t be more difficult than the teenager, _please_.” 

Barry let himself be shooed off to bed, returning after brushing his teeth and changing clothes to toss an extra pillow and blanket on top of Magnus. Magnus shot him a grateful thumbs-up over the back of the couch, and Barry hit the lights on his way out. Merle was right. It was tomorrow’s problem. He might as well try and get some rest.

Or, maybe after just one more look at the symbols he’d copied. One look over wouldn’t hurt anyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In reference to age in this, I'm using my "2.5x slower" rule. Until maturity (50) elves age 2.5x slower than humans. So Taako is 34 in this chapter, or 13. This kind of math might become important later....


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taako yelled, “Try it homie, fuckin’ touch me, I’m learning magicks, I’ll blast you outta the fuckin’ sky.”
> 
> \--
> 
> Barry observes, Lup leaves, Davenport bonds, Magnus helps with science, and Taako makes a ghost.

The first morning, Barry found Taako in the kitchen at four in the morning. He’d stumbled through the doorway with a yawn in his throat and startled Taako badly enough that he dropped an entire pan of scrambled eggs all over the floor and burnt himself. 

He’d been halfway through a panic attack when Barry blinked the sleep out of his eyes and started sweeping the eggs up himself, and he trembled the entire time Barry sat him down at the table and treated the burn on his hand with a simple healing spell and a bandage. Not even something to fetch Merle for. 

He’d hardly seen Taako the rest of the day. 

The next morning, it was Taako who found Barry. Barry woke up once again face down on the desk in his lab, ink from his notes smeared on his cheek and back aching at the less than ideal sleeping position. He opened his eyes to find Taako staring directly at him, pointy finger poking him in the forehead to wake him, crouched down on the floor to peer as close as possible with those owlish baby elf eyes. 

Barry was pretty proud of himself for not visibly startling. 

He blinked his eyes open slowly, watched Taako’s face split into a smile as he rocked back on his heels and rose, fidgeting around with something as Barry mustered his energy into sitting up. “You want coffee?” Taako offered, already pouring steaming liquid from a kettle into Magnus’s favorite mug. It said ‘ _Virginia WAS for Lovers’_ and Magnus thought it was _hilarious,_ though Barry had never really understood the joke. 

He took the coffee Taako offered him, sipping the scalding liquid black and wondering how rude it would be to go get cream and sugar from the kitchen. He was surprised when Taako poured a mug of his own, cradled it in his palms, and took a massive gulp. 

He caught Barry watching, raised an eyebrow, and said, “I’m old enough for coffee, ya’know,” before snatching the kettle off the desk and wandering right back out the door. 

That morning, after breakfast, Lup tugged on his sleeve and pulled him to a corner for privacy. There had always been differences between the twins, just enough physical contrariety to tell them apart, separate them into two separate entities before you properly got to know them. Taako’s eyebrows were darker, Lup’s cheeks were fuller, she had freckles on her nose while he had them near the corners of his eyes. Now though, the difference was stark. Barry hadn’t spent more time than his anatomy classes required to study about elven physiology, but now that he was witnessing the “pubescent shift” in front of him, his fingers itched to start diagramming. Ear shape and size, massive pupils versus moderately sized ones, the emoting, the crackle of electricity that sometimes danced through Taako’s hair-- innate elven magic. 

Lup waved her hand in front of Barry’s face, patted him on the cheek to catch his attention again, snap him out of his thoughts. “Sorry,” he said, forcing himself not to gaze into his eyes and _wonder_ , “I’m listening.” 

“There was a ghost last night,” she told him. “Just like Magnus said. Shakey red spectre popped out of him and floated into the ceiling. He didn’t even seem to register it. Didn’t wake him at all.” 

“No reaction at all, huh?” Barry asked, forging his mental notes for later.

Lup shook her head, and she shrugged, and said, “He seems fine now.” They both glanced across the room at Taako, who was playing around making a mage hand float an apple as close to Davenport as he could before the gnome took notice. Kid Taako and grown-up Taako played the same sorts of games, it seemed. Lup said, “Maybe it’s nothing,” and sounded like she didn’t believe herself. 

“Maybe it’s nothing,” Barry parroted, going off to his lab to make notes. 

The third morning Barry found both twins in the kitchen. They were mid-conversation, and he let the distraction mask his presence as he eavesdropped in the hallway, only feeling a little bit guilty about it. 

Lup said, “You know you don’t have to cook, right?” and received no response. “Like, they’re not gonna make you ‘earn your keep’ or whatever, babe. Nobody’s kicking you off the boat.”

Taako’s response was the sizzling of bacon, and then, “Haven’t had a kitchen like this since Auntie, Lulu, you really think I’m gonna _waste it?_ ” 

There was a lull in the conversation after that, just the sound of spatulas against cast iron and the clink of coffee mugs on the counter, and then Lup said, “I’ll have to be getting back to the city soon,” and the silence was deafening. 

“You’re leaving?” 

“We only have a month to get the light, babe.”

“ _You’re leaving_?”

“Koko, listen--” and so much like that first day, there was the sound of something crashing to the ground. Barry peaked his head into the kitchen just as Taako stormed out of it, saw a shattered plate on the floor at Lup’s feet, the bacon that it has assumedly held scattered everywhere. Lup stared down at it and ran her hand through her hair with a heavy sigh. Barry went to the pantry to fetch the dust bin. 

“At least he’s getting comfortable,” he offered as he swept the mess up. Taako flinched a little less around them, ventured away from his sister a little more. He still traced sudden movements with wary eyes, but not nearly as frantically. Yesterday he’d even managed to laugh at one of Magnus’s jokes, apparently on the road towards forgiving him for what he was still calling a ‘kidnapping.’

“He’s comfortable around me,” Lup lamented. “Bear, you don’t have to, I--”

“I don’t mind.” 

Lup left him to it, then, tending the other projects on the stove and pouring another cup of coffee. She added cream, sugar, and pushed it into his hands when he finished tossing the shards away. 

“I could talk to him?” he offered, and Lup raised an eyebrow, an exact replica of her brother. “He doesn’t exactly hate me, so, y’know. Winning?” 

She chuckled at that, rolled her eyes and waved a hand at him. “Go for it, babe. See if you can convince him to stay when I head back to the castle.” 

“We’ll need to establish a runaway protocol. Can’t just have Magnus throwing himself overboard every time the kid makes a break for it.” 

“Magnus _loves_ throwing himself overboard. He likes making Davenport fret over him.” 

“Yeah, that’s true.” Then he grinned a little crookedly. “Maybe it’s a good thing he and Taako don’t like each other.”

Lup let out an actual laugh at that, clinked her mug against Barry’s and took a sip. “Count your blessing and count the days.” She went back to the cooking, and Barry set the table. They’d talk about it more over breakfast. 

* * *

  
  
  


Lup left on the fourth day after breakfast. She was hesitant to, but knew it was necessary. They talked about it in the bridge the evening prior, while Lucretia distracted Taako with a Sending notebook she’d found a few cycles ago, showing him how to send messages from one page to another and how to encrypt them so only their intended audience could read them. 

The meeting in the bridge was short but deliberate. 

Davenport said, “I know these are not ideal circumstances, but if we have a chance to save this world then we _need_ to. This is the plan we have in place. We need to continue.” 

They’d all agreed, Lup especially, and that had been that. She left the next morning, and Taako had been an unholy terror ever since. That wasn’t to say he’d been much of an angel while Lup was around, what with the stealing and the snarking and the suspicious glares and the random bursts of shouting. But at least with Lup around he’d been generally happy. Now he was obviously miserable, sulky and full of sharp edges and ready to be mean at a moment’s notice. 

But he was a kid, and while Barry didn’t remember much of being thirteen, he knew he was probably a bit of a handful, what with the hormones and the growing up and the suddenly thinking of one’s self as an adult without being treated like one. Not only was he a kid, he was _Taako_ . Taako was defensive and full of pointy edges at the best of times, even when he warmed up to you, even when he _loved you_ , as far as Barry could tell from the past twenty years. 

But this was not the Taako they’d gotten used to. This was mean, scared, baby Taako, and Barry figured they’d all just have to learn how to cope since _obviously_ they couldn’t expect the middle schooler to. They were the adults. They would be fine. 

Before Lup left, Taako had made sure she had her half of the paper, knew exactly how it worked, and would keep in contact with him while she was away. She swore to it, crossing her heart and tucking the paper safely away. She kissed him on the forehead, and it did precious little to improve his terrible mood. 

Barry half expected to catch him lighting fires again. 

No fires, though. He’d stormed off the deck and locked himself in his and Lup’s room for the remainder of the morning, and from the sound of the ruckus inside, he spent the time trashing the place. Sometime around noon Magnus found him in the kitchen, but when he’d tried to talk to him, Taako had shoved his half-eaten sandwich in his pocket and stomped away. 

“Give him a while, I think. He has a lot to deal with right now,” Barry consoled Magnus later, patting him on the shoulder and wondering _when_ Taako had found time to bake bread, because they definitely hadn’t had any before. Speaking of.

He brought up a possible supply run into town, and he and Magnus set off to find the others. They found Merle and Davenport on deck, battling a bit of a breeze that threatened to scatter their card game to the wind. 

A short ways away, Taako was leaning over the deck railing, meticulously using Mage Hand to pick up one pebble at a time and add them to a growing pile he was building at his feet. Barry wondered what he planned to do with them, once he’d gathered enough. 

“I’ll go,” Merle said to the market run. “I wouldn’t mind a bit of the ole’ leg stretch.” 

Davenport nodded at that, watching with a narrowed eye as a small pebble made its way through the air and settled on the edge of their table. He said, “Take Taako with you.” 

Merle immediately bristled, while Taako’s ears perked up. A stone that had been midway through it’s journey faltered a bit, falling a foot before being caught and resuming it’s float through the air. 

“Uh,” Merle faltered like the stone. “Pass. I’m not taking the brat along.” 

A second stone made its way onto the table, right next to its friend, with a tiny nudge. Davenport said, “He could use some fresh air. Might like to get off the ship.”

Merle crossed his arms over his chest. “Do you remember what happened the last time we had our little friend in town? I’m not going through all that again.” 

“To be fair, he thought we were gonna kill him and eat him or something,” Magnus added thoughtfully, and was properly ignored. Barry seemed to be the only person to hear a stone clatter to the ground. 

“He needs something to do. He’s bored,” Davenport whispered back harshly, and Merle replied with a glare. 

Merle grumbled, “What he needs is a good smacking…” and then yelped and clutched his forehead as a stone bounced off of the dwarf and clattered onto the deck. Everyone whipped around to look at Taako, who was standing, a handful of stones clutched and ready to toss over, arm cranked back over his shoulder and robes blowing wildly in the wind.

He yelled, “Try it homie, fuckin’ touch me, I’m learning magicks, I’ll blast you outta the fuckin’ sky.”

“You see!” Merle yelled back, and Magnus nudged him harshly with his elbow, nearly knocking him out of his chair.

“No one is going to hit you,” Davenport placated, on his feet and standing between both parties.

Taako clenched his jaw and tossed his rocks to the floor with a sound like hail. He snapped, “Tell him that!” and pointed an accusatory finger at Merle, who grumbled in response.

Davenport watched him for a moment, then nodded. He turned to Merle. “He’s right. Merle, apologize.” 

“Dav, you can’t be serious,” Merle gaped, and Davenport crossed his arms, and they glared at each other for a long moment before Merle broke and threw his hands in the air. 

“Fine!” he said. “ _Fine_! If you want to let the kid get away with murder, then I won’t stop you. I’ll tell you what, though. I would have already shoved my foot two feet up adult-Taako’s ass by now.” 

Taako kicked the pebbles on the deck and sent them scattering. He yelled, “You can’t even _reach_ two feet up my ass, old man!” 

Davenport looked between Merle and Taako evenly, looked down at the floor and nudged a pebble away with the side of his boot. He said, “Merle, a word, please,” and then, “Taako, if you would like to accompany Barry and Magnus to the markets today, you may, but these stones will be attended to first.” 

“Attended to?” Taako snarked. His ears were still flattened to his head, defensive. Teeth bared, shoulders hunched. Davenport nodded simply. 

“Anywhere that’s not scattered across the floor of my ship, if you don’t mind.” 

Taako gave a mock salute, and Davenport and Merle disappeared into the belly of the ship. Barry spared a sideways glance at Magnus, who looked startled and a little dazed, and then at Taako, who was gathering pebbles off the floor and slipping them into the pocket of his robe. Barry didn’t want to know what he planned to do with them. 

“So you wanna head to the market with us?” Magnus offered, shaking himself out of his shock. Taako glanced up from his position crouched on the floor and grimaced. 

He said, “I don’t need to be entertained,” voice passive-aggressive even though he’d proven himself to be quite aggressive-aggressive as well. “Head out without me, boys. I have better things to do.” 

There wasn’t any arguing with that, then. Taako ducked around them to head deeper in the ship, off to do… something. Barry and Magnus left him to it, shared another uneasy glance, and prepared for their journey out.

* * *

A monumental amount of time had passed between Taako shutting himself in his room again and Davenport coming to find him. He’d had time to do _everything_ . Earlier in the day he’d gone through the closet and sorted things into two sections: cool and terrible. There were so many clothes. Taako could never imagine owning this many clothes. He was too apprehensive to actually put any on-- even though they were _his_ , technically-- but he at least knew where to start if he decided he wanted to. 

Since he’d been back he’d body slammed his pillow and beaten it up pretty good, arranged his pebbles on the window sill _just in case_ , and tore all the blankets off of both beds to make himself a sizable nest on the bottom bunk. 

Sure, sure he was too old for a nest, but if everyone was going to treat him like a baby he might as well act like one. He was in his nest, hidden up to his eyeballs, when a quick knock sounded on the door. 

Taako startled, jumping, and burrowed a little bit deeper. He watched the door with wide eyes. 

The knock sounded again. “Taako, it’s Davenport,” came a call from the other side, the gnome’s voice holding the same alto cadence as Taako’s. Taako wondered if it was hard being a captain under such conditions. He was so… small. Everyone but Merle towered over him, but he had charge over everyone. Taako wondered how that worked. He’d learned rather quickly that _nobody_ takes you seriously when you’re little-- in the real world especially. Taako couldn’t speak yet for the Starblaster. 

“May I come in?” Davenport asked through the door, and Taako was surprised he hadn’t simply barged in already. He nodded, realized that was stupid, and cleared his throat. 

“Yeah, whatever.” 

Davenport opened the door and stepped inside. He left it cracked open behind him as he came further into the room and stopped next to the bed. He was looking over the nest studiously, but he didn’t mention it. 

Instead, he motioned towards the bed and asked, “May I?” 

Taako scooted a little further away, pulled his nest closer in towards himself. He said, “Do what you want,” and Davenport took the invitation to climb up and sit on the edge of the bed. He looked at Taako steadily, face blank, and it was entirely unnerving. It made Taako want to squirm out of his skin. Instead, he stared down at the blanket he had most firmly wrapped around him. 

He said, “If you’re gonna yell at me about earlier, go ahead and get it over with.” 

Davenport blinked a few times, slow and steady, and said, “I’m not here to yell at you.” 

That was a surprise. Taako glanced back up at him and asked, “What do you want then?” He wondered how long it would take him to break Davenport, push enough buttons that he lost his patience and slapped him. Make him break the promise he’d made on the deck, prove Lup wrong, show these people _weren’t_ safe. And then it was open season. 

When people were still pretending to be nice to you, you had to be careful. But when they gave up on you, all reservations were gone. Taako could scream and rage and take off, and he could hide in the woods or find a job in the markets, and he could get away from these crazies. 

He knew what Lup told him. He _knew_ that he was one of the crazies, that he was supposed to be here, theoretically. That didn’t make sense, though. He wasn’t a scientist. He didn’t know the first thing about research, space, or _magic_ , really. Barry had referred to him as their “transmutation specialist,” but Taako didn’t know what transmutation _was_. He learned what he could from people who would give him the time, and that was seldom. Books were hard to come by and tricky to learn from. 

He couldn’t be _this_ . He couldn’t believe that he was _this_. And even if he was, he didn’t know how to fill in those shoes. Didn’t know how to be whatever they were expecting out of him.

He’d never had anyone expect anything out of him, anyways. 

What did they fucking _want_?

“Has anyone explained to you our situation aboard the Starblaster?” Davenport asked, which might have been the last thing Taako expected him to say. He stayed silent, and Davenport accepted that as an answer and continued. 

“It would seem that we exist inside a time loop. Every year we travel to a new planet, and every year time resets to the beginning again. We have been in this time loop for seventeen years so far.”

“That’s not that long,” Taako interrupted, and Davenport grinned. 

“Perhaps not for you, no. Though it is quite a while to get to know somebody. The humans, especially. Two of them have nearly lived their lifetime over again.” 

“Wow,” Taako said, “Babies.” 

Davenport laughed. He nodded. “I thought so too. But it just so happened they were the best for their jobs. You and your sister as well. It was strange to hire family members, let alone twins, for this mission, but you were the most talented mages to apply.”

“Of course we were,” Taako agreed, because even if he didn’t believe it, he was always ready to hype up his sister. “We’re amazing.” He thought about Davenport’s words for a moment, thought about the humans-- Magnus and Lucretia. Twice their age spans. 

“So we’re not aging, then,” Taako said. “This is it.”

He saw something falter in Davenport’s facial expression, some sort of personal deliberation. That was the face adults made when they were trying to decide how to lie to you. Taako determined to take whatever Davenport said next with a grain of salt. 

He said, “When we leave the time loop, we will begin to age again.” Taako wondered if they’re figured out how to leave it yet, or if they were trapped. Now probably wasn’t the time to ask. 

“Does that mean I’m stuck like this?” he asked, because that was the real question that mattered. He didn’t know what it was like to be one hundred twenty-two, but he figured he might like to return to “normal” better than he would like to be in his third decade forever. Especially not when nobody liked him. Maybe they liked him when he was a grown-up.

Once again, Davenport looked conflicted. “These are unprecedented circumstances,” he said, then glanced at Taako’s face. Those were… bigger words that he was used to. Davenport tried again. “We’ve never seen something like this happen before, but if past experience has told us anything, when the year resets you probably will as well.” 

Taako nodded. “I’ll go back to normal.” And he thought about it. “What am I like when I’m normal?” He dug himself out of his nest enough to bunch it up under his elbows. If Davenport was going to do anything fishy, he would have done it by now. That, and it was getting a little too toasty in there. 

Davenport quirked his ears curiously, settled back a bit more against the bedpost. He said, “Thought you would have asked Lup these sorts of questions.” 

Taako shrugged one shoulder. “I did. But she has to say nice shit about me, she’s my sister.” 

“How do you feel about that?” Davenport asked, and the question was deliberate. Taako’s ears flattened against his head suspiciously.

“She’s my _sister_ ,” he said carefully. “Nothing to feel. That’s it.” 

Davenport held out two hands to pacify. “Of course. I’m not trying to cross any lines.” 

Taako narrowed his eyes, unappeased. “You didn’t answer the question.” 

He went thoughtful at that, looking off to the middle distance and smiling a bit sadly to himself. He turned his gaze back to Taako and sat up straight and proper. “You’re one of the bravest people I’ve ever known. You’re clever, and you have a talent for mischief. When you feel inclined, you are capable of insurmountable kindness. You are fiercely loyal and impossibly resourceful. You hate to admit it, but you take very good care of the people on this ship. We all love you very much, and if you give us a touch of time, I’m sure we’ll come to love you like this as well.” 

Taako was speechless at that, absolutely shell shocked from the sudden barrage of affection from someone who was, essentially, a stranger. He blinked a few times, willed himself to keep the tears out of his eyes and his breathing steady. He couldn’t do anything about the way his ears fluttered. 

“That is,” Davenport continued. “If you stop physically assaulting your crewmates. Gods know it isn’t the first time, but everyone might warm up better with a bit of peace.” 

“I’ll work on it,” Taako choked out, and Davenport shot him a kind smile before slipping off the bed and out of the room, shutting the door firmly behind him. 

Once the door was shut, Taako slumped over bonelessly in bed, pulling up a blanket from his nest and wrapping it firmly over his shoulder. He also unearthed his portion of the Sending paper from his breast pocket and pawed a writing utensil off the nightstand. Automatic ink dispenser. Weird. 

He chewed on the tip of it for a moment before placing the tip against the page. He wrote a quick note: 

_Dear Lup,_

_I can’t believe you stranded me with these dorks._

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


“Alright,” Magnus said, stopping them on a street corner and glancing around. Barry bumped into his side as he stopped, bracing his hand on Magnus’s upper arm and apologizing under his breath. He gazed around the busy intersection, at the swarms of people rushing around them, knocking into them from time to time and pressing them close together. Magnus glanced over their heads and around the swarms, just scanning idly, not too sure what he ought to be looking for. Barry had pulled a wand out of his pocket and was murmuring something Magnus hardly recognized under his breath. 

He frowned. 

“There is magic _everywhere_. I can’t even differentiate,” he complained, putting his wand away and pushing his glasses up his nose. “Okay, walk me through what happened.” 

That was something Magnus could manage. He glanced around again, pointing out where he had been and where Taako had come from, explaining where Big’n’Spooky had popped out of and what had gone down after that. Barry zoned out a little after the Wizard McGee explanation and pushed his way through the crowd, approaching the doorway Taako had come running out of. 

He reached for the door handle, jiggled it.   
  


“Locked.”

“Figures.” 

“What’d the guy look like?” Barry asked as he squinted up at the wooden sing hanging over the door. He copied it down in his notebook, drawing the symbols that decorated the edges, and pulled out his Picture Snapper to take a quick photo. 

“Um,” Magnus said as he watched him work. “Tall and skinny, like sickly looking--”

“How tall?” Barry asked, then realized he interrupted. “Sorry.” 

“ _Tall_ ,” Magnus emphasized. “Eight feet? Seven and a half? Too tall to be normal.”

“Okay, real tall and sickly looking…” 

“Yeah, like. Sallow. Cheeks caved in, no hair, vacant eyes. His fingers reminded me of spiders? But then he did…. Whatever he did with the whip thing, and he shrunk down with Taako. Normal height, my height, filled out a little. Less like a skeleton man and just a regular asshole.” 

He watched as Barry wrote the words ‘regular asshole’ down in his notes, nodding to himself. He said, “You already explained the whip thing to me… I’m curious about that. Think we can find an artificer around here?” 

“Would they know anything about whips made of light, and not like, whip stuff?”

Barry shrugged, got jostled by the crowd, and bumped into Magnus again. “They might.”

“Then let’s take a look around.” 

They spent the better half of their afternoon wandering around the quarter, getting themselves all twisted about by haphazardly turning corners and wandering into shops hoping for a proper lead. All they really manage to find was some knock-off witchcraft and a crusty old man who charged them far too much to waste their time. 

“Lup’s seeing what she can dig up in the libraries, at least,” Barry said as they sulked out of yet another shop selling nothing but soaps and candles.

Magnus had bought a small sack of soaps, all of them citrus scented and carved into the shape of ducks. Barry had pouted while purchasing a small supply of candles and charcoals and a few sticks of chalk. They were very polite to the shopkeep, who seemed rather put-out when they inquired about anything ‘back room’ she might keep in stock. Barry said “anything _useful_ ” and she’d been ready to kick them out on their asses when Magnus decided to drop it and buy the ducks. 

“Not a total loss,” Magnus said, slipping his new friends into his rucksack.

Except that it was, really. They were out of time though, and agreed that it would be best to head to the market and do their actual supply run before the sun went down on them. They didn’t want to be caught away from the Starblaster after nightfall. 

They stuck close, Magnus using the strap of Barry’s bag as a handle so as not to lose him while they wormed their way through the crowds. It was so crowded that, even being above average height for the local population, neither of them seemed to notice the stranger lurking in the alleyway, with a small red jar hung around his neck, glowing with the thrum of a heartbeat. 

  
  
  


* * *

  
  


Things were better in the evening. They arrived from their trip to the market to find the ship once again at peace, Merle occupying himself by taking inventory of their healing potions in the medbay and Davenport looking over one of Lucretia’s journals from their earliest cycles. Taako snuck out of his room at some point, seemingly materializing in the kitchen to loot through their supply and start throwing it together into a pot. When asked what he was doing, he answered with an eye-roll and the statement, “Celery doesn’t last _nearly_ as long as ya think it does, homie. Time to soup this up,” which is exactly how adult-Taako would reply. It almost felt normal. 

Barry was still a bit disheartened to have not discovered anything useful while in town, but he had his notes and some plans to brainstorm. Surely _someone_ had to see the ‘Big’n’Spooky,’ as Magnus was calling him, and if Barry could just _find_ that someone he’d be one step closer to some real information. But _nobody_ in town would confess to knowing the guy, and as it stood, all they were doing with the Taako-situation was making blind guesses and hoping that nothing got worse. 

That evening, things got worse. 

Dinner was just about ready, Barry and Magnus already congregating in the kitchen, and Merle and Davenport wrapping up with their work before joining them. Taako shouted that food was up and insisted on carrying the pot of soup to the table himself because he “ _doesn’t need help, you guys,_ Jeezus- _k_ _reezus.”_ That was out of character again. If adult-Taako could pass off manual labor to someone else he always would. Ah well. 

Barry and Magnus were just starting to sit down when Taako appeared in the doorway, swaying under the weight of a massive pot. 

“You got it?” Barry cautioned, taking a step towards him as he stumbled. Taako didn’t reply, but he kept his footing. Something was… off… about the expression on his face. It was blank, slack, like he wasn’t quite focusing his eyes. 

“Taako?” Barry asked, and suddenly Magnus was there taking the pot out of his hands and putting it on the table. Taako grimaced, reaching up to place his hand over his mouth, and for a brief second Barry was terrified he was going to throw up.

He said, “I’m not feeling so good…” in a voice that was slurred and a little thready.

He took another step, and then his entire body jolted. Like getting hit with a defibrillator. He jerked, and a red ghost in his exact shape and form fell out of him. He swayed on his feet while the ghost idled midair, seemingly looking straight into Barry’s eyes, before rocketing up and through the ceiling. Barry watched it go, trying to burn its appearance into his memory, and was startled by the noise of Taako collapsing onto the floor. 

“Damn it!” Magnus said, dropping to kneel next to him. “Shoulda been ready to catch him. Did he hit his head? Merle! Get in here!”

Merle came running about as fast as Merle ever came running, while Magnus cradled the kid’s head in his lap and tried to jostle him awake, and Barry crouched at his side and ran the customary magic detections. Nothing. Nothing new, nothing even _louder_ than it was before. Magically, if Barry hadn’t _watched_ it just happen, he wouldn’t have thought anything happened at all. 

Taako woke up again when Merle was checking his pulse with one hand and peeling his eye open to check his pupils with the other. He whined, batting Merle’s hands away from him, and complained, “Why is gross Santa touching me?” 

And nobody laughed. And everybody froze. Because the voice that came out of Taako was different, a few octaves higher and a hell of a lot younger. He had a lisp. His two front teeth were a little _too big_ in his mouth, like they’d recently grown in. He nudged everyone away from him and sat up, ears drooping and face grimacing as he did.

He said, “Why is everyone looking at me like that?” and when he tried to clamber to his feet, Davenport reached out and helped him. He’d been noticeably taller than Davenport before, a head and a half taller. He’d come up to Barry’s shoulder nearly. Now he had half a foot on Davenport at most. When Merle climbed to his feet with a groan and a number of other old man noises, he straightened up and reached to check Taako’s forehead for a fever. 

They were the same exact height, looking at each other eye-to-eye. 

Taako screamed, ear-piercing, and took off at a run.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that's right, friends. our boy is getting YOUNGER. 
> 
> I did some math. Using my trusty 2.5 rule, our boy is gonna de-age one "elf year" every 2.5 days. That is, when we met the dude he was about 13. Now, after this monster of a chapter, we're down to 11. Maybe Barry and Lup will find a cure.
> 
> thanks to everyone leaving comments! you guys are the real mvps. <3 :D


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taako and Magnus bond, and everyone is concerned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: panic attack (not graphic), and implied abuse. very mild, in my opinion, but take care of yourselves.

“You trust me, right?” Barry asked a  _ very _ petulant Taako, who glared suspiciously between Barry and the small crowd of people in the doorway. So far all they’d gotten on him was a height and weight. He’d started fussing the second Merle pulled out the stethoscope, and rather than try to pin him down and get this over with, Barry and Davenport were trying to mediate. 

“Potentially,” he said, face still suspicious. It had been so much easier to do this all when he’d been unconscious.

Barry reached back and took Merle’s stethoscope from him, looping it around his own neck and crouching in front of a wide-eyed and untrusting Taako. He held the drum up and tapped his finger against it. “It doesn’t hurt,” he explained. “We hold this against your chest, and we put these in our ears, so we can listen to your heart. It feels cold, but all it does is touch you. No shocks or pricks or anything. You wanna hold it?” 

Taako’s ears were flattened against his head, and his legs were drawn up into his chest, but he held out a hesitant hand and let Barry press the stethoscope into it. He explained, “Those bits go in your ears, yeah, now press that piece here…” Barry took the drum and pressed it against the pulse point on his own wrist. Taako’s eyes widened as he listened, then he took the drum himself and pressed it to his own wrist, and then his chest, and eventually his forehead. 

“Ya hear your brain working?” Merle asked, teasing, and Taako pulled the earpieces out with a frown.

“Brains don’t make noise, I’m not an idiot,” Taako grouched, and Barry stood and backed up. “But I guess if it’s harmless…” He pouted a bit and thrust the device out. “Do your stupid scans or whatever.” 

He let Merle take the stethoscope back and listen to his breathing, to his heart, to the gurgle of his stomach. They went through the whole process over again when it came time to test his reflexes--

_“Here, see? Hit me with it. It’s rubber, and it’s little. It’s not worth the effort it would take to hurt you with it.”_

_ “Jesus and Pan, Merle, could you say it any less threatening?” _

\-- and for a round of attempted healing magic-- 

_ “I’m gonna press my hand to your chest, right like this, ya see? And I’m gonna see if Pan can do anything. We’ll try the same thing with your head.”  _

_ “If you try anything perverted, I’ll fuckin’ bite you.”  _

_ “Kiddo, you honestly aren’t my type.”  _

_ “Gross, Merle.”  _

\-- and when it came time to even  _ mention _ the word needles, Merle handed the reins over to Barry and escaped into the hallway. 

With Taako’s perceived primary threat out of the way, he turned his suspiciousness to the needle and the humans left in the room. Barry knew this was going to be a tough one. He explained, “I just need a small vial of blood to run some general tests. Make sure nothing is changing on a level that we can’t see plainly.” 

“You’re going to steal my blood,” Taako said accusatorially. 

“Just for some tests. Not going to do anything hinky with it.”

“Could make some pretty fancy spells with a vial of elfling blood,” Taako said, and Barry had to take a moment to reel from the fact that this baby Taako knew  _ anything _ about pseudo-necromantic spell casting rituals. 

“The sooner we do this, the sooner we’ll all stop poking at you,” he reasoned, and Taako replied with a snarl. 

“Or you could stop poking at me  _ without literally stabbing me _ !” He ended his sentence with a near shout, scooting further back on the examination table and wrapping his arms more firmly around his legs. 

Barry was about ready to give up, put the needle away, and retreat to bed for the evening. This was too long of a day to be dealing with, between their adventure that morning, and their trip into town, the de-aging itself, and the coaxing Taako out of hiding afterwards. He’d fled after waking up, and it had taken them nearly half an hour to find the kid hiding up high on the top shelf of his and Lup’s closet. It had taken another half hour of a  _ very _ patient Davenport to talk the kid down from there. He emerged eventually, sheepish and red eyed, and said that he “just needed a moment,” which Barry could understand.

_ Barry _ needed a moment.

“What?” Magnus asked, sitting down next to Taako on the exam table. Taako eyed him sideways and scooted a bit further. “You’re not  _ scared _ are you?” 

Barry would have bet ahead of time that Taako was far too clever and stubborn to rise to that sort of teasing, then again, Taako was essentially eleven right now. He bristled a bit and peeked out from behind his knees.

“I’m not  _ scared _ ,” he snapped. 

Magnus gave a big, exaggerated shrug. “I dunno. You look pretty scared to me.”

“I’m  _ not _ .” 

“Are too.” 

“Am  _ not!” _

“Prove it,” Magnus shot back, and Taako snarled at him. Barry was getting a headache. Magnus said, “I bet I’m braver than you are. I’ll let Barry take my blood.” He rolled up his sleeves and held his arm up, said, “Go for it, Bear. Take it away.” 

Taako sat up a little straighter, coming out from behind his knees to sit cross-legged, and said, “What would he want with  _ your _ blood anyways?” 

Magnus shrugged again. “I’m sure he has a hundred uses right now for Magnus blood.” That wasn’t quite true. Off the top of his head, Barry could think of five at  _ max _ . Give him a moment, though. “I trust him. It’ll hurt a little, and then it’ll be over, and if you’re brave about it I won’t even have to hold you down.” 

Taako shuddered a bit at that, ears flattening defensively. He grumbled, “Don’t touch me,” and “Fine….” and then finally, with a shove to Magnus’s shoulder, “You go first, though.” 

“No problem, little man.” 

“I’m  _ not _ little!” 

Barry repressed a deep sigh and turned back to the cabinets to get a second set of supplies. This meant a lot, in ways Taako had no way of knowing about. Normally Magnus would do absolutely anything he could to avoid getting checked over after accidents, and he was the King of avoiding needles and blood and all of that. For a guy with a lot of bloody noses, he was an absolute baby about getting his blood drawn. Once, during a cycle where they were all at risk of catching the  _ actual plague _ , Merle had to cast Sleep on Magnus and have the twins, Lucretia,  _ and  _ Barry hold him down in case he woke up in the middle of the vaccination.

That had been a long,  _ long _ cycle. 

This time, luckily, the blood drawing passed without incident. Magnus held his breath while Barry got a quick vial of blood from him, and if Taako trembled the entire thirty seconds it took Barry to prick him and wrap it all up, nobody mentioned it. Afterwards Magnus told him he was ‘ _ very brave _ ’ and Taako wrinkled his nose up and stuck his tongue out before darting out of the room and disappearing somewhere into the Starblaster. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“I have never seen someone his age that terrified of a routine exam,” Merle grouched as he and Davenport made their way to the kitchen for a cup of tea and a conversation. He had his notes from the exam in hand and he glanced over them while they walked. “Did nobody take that child to the healers when he was younger?” 

“Judging by the last half hour, I’d reason that’s likely,” Davenport said. 

That was worrisome. Kids needed routine check ups. They needed looking after. They changed so quickly-- elves maybe not as fast as others, but still quicker than they ever would once they reached maturity. It took a lot to keep little ones healthy. 

The numbers were worrisome too. “Four-foot-eight and seventy-five pounds a few days ago, four-foot-three and sixty-two pounds now. That’s small for an elf his age, unless we got the ages wrong. Wouldn’t worry about it much if I couldn’t feel the kid’s ribs through his tunic.” 

“You and Barry were rather confident about the age initially,” Davenport pointed out, and he was right. Short of doing a dental scan, there wasn’t much more confidence to get. The kid’s soul read clear as day, time-magic and all. 

Merle said, “I don’t wanna speak out of turn about the twins. Their business is their business and all that, but Dav, I’m not sure they’ve ever had someone taking care of them.” 

Davenport nodded at that, taking the kettle off the stove as it started to whistle and pouring them each a cup of tea. “We’re going to learn a lot about patience in the next month,” he said, and Merle was struck with a realization. 

If Taako had aged down twice, it was likely enough that he’d continue to get younger. Merle said, “Ready to have a preschooler running around?” and Davenport sighed, long and heavily, into his cup of tea. 

  
  
  
  


As with every cycle, they settled into a routine. Some cycles required more cohesive routines than others-- research heavy cycles trapped them all into sleepless hours in the lab and exhausting expeditions into the wild, and some more hostile cycles found them all locked up in the Starblaster, living in each other’s pockets and driving each other half-insane through pure proximity for an entire year straight. 

This cycle initially had been rather relaxed. Three months early on of searching for the light and discovering the civilization harbouring it. After that, they’d all tried their hand at worming their way into the good graces of the courts, enough so to either explain the dire necessity of their mission or steal the light when they were out of time and make a run for it. 

Lup, by far, had been the most successful. Barry wasn’t sure  _ what _ exactly she and Lucretia were doing with Prince-Whoever-It-Was-- Lucretia wrote frequent reports back, but they were professional to a T and wholly unhelpful at quelling Barry’s curiosities-- but she swore they were close. She’d seen the light, even. A bit longer and they’d have everything under control. 

They were cutting it close with this timeline, but their missions these days were of the “pass/fail” variety. Save the plane, or don’t. That was the end of it. 

So while Lup and Lucretia settled into whatever routine they had going in town, the rest of the crew had found themselves free to do whatever they pleased. Davenport spent his time on ship repairs, just making sure everything was in perfect working order for their cycles to come. He’d vented once before, while a little bit drunk on wine in a plane that made their wine a touch more powerful than anyone but Merle was ready for, that he had to make equipment meant to last a decade or two tops last indefinitely. They’d all grown deadly silent at that, until Taako snorted gracelessly into his own chalice and said, “Unless we all die before the Starblaster does.” 

And maybe it said something about the state of their mental health that they’d all laughed themselves sick at the idea of trying to outlive a piece of machinery. Still, Barry often found comfort in the “we either win, or we die,” mentality. He knew it wasn’t healthy. He’d sat through those trauma seminars at the IPRE. But the IPRE hadn’t taught them how to cope with  _ this _ . 

They were all coping though. Davenport with the meticulous care of his ship, and with some late evenings in the lab with Barry pouring over maps and planar theories and old documentation of previous cycles. Before their sudden change in circumstances, Barry had found himself rather bored with the documentation of any new plant life Merle stumbled upon and what felt like dead-end theorization about the Light. Taako had joined him for that a lot, squinting at the magical annotations and throwing out hair brained ideas that Barry had no choice but to put some real thought into. It was nice to have someone who thought in Big Pictures floating around while Barry found himself trapped under pages of equations. 

Merle had taken to walking the woods, bringing back samples and dabbling with locals in town, just getting his feet wet. Stocking up on healing supplies they were running low on or had yet to encounter before. And Magnus-- Barry wasn’t quite sure what Magnus had been up to. 

The presence of a child on board demanded a tad more structure than they’d had previously, though. In fact, Taako seemingly ran via innate clockwork that forced all of them into a better semblance of normalcy. Breakfast and dinner became staple meeting times, whereas before they’d been drop-in free-for-all’s. There wasn’t a day since Taako had shrunk down that Barry wasn’t up and moving before six o’clock in the morning. 

This day was the same as the others. Barry woke up stomach-down on his mattress, on top of the covers, still wearing all of his clothes. He popped up with a gasp, nearly suffocating on his pillow in his sleep, and blinked groggily around the room. He didn’t remember going to sleep, but he did remember a tired-looking Davenport shooing him out of his lab in some very late hour in the evening. He sat up with creaking bones and wondered what had woken him up, when he heard a quick tapping knock on his door. 

He rubbed his hands over his face, said, “Come on in,” and a second later the door was creaking open to show Taako. 

He poked his head into the room and grinned, big and toothy. His hair was a nest of bedhead and he was still in pajamas. He stepped in further with two cups of coffee in hand, and his grin fell off his face. 

“Are you still sleeping?” he asked, “I can leave.” 

Barry waved him off and said, “It’s fine.” His back ached a little as he stood, stretching, and took the coffee from Taako’s hand. “Thanks,” he said, and ruffled Taako’s hair without thinking about it. Taako went tense under his hand, flinching, and Barry snapped into a higher level of cognizance in an instant. 

What was he doing? Why did he  _ do _ that? This was  _ Taako _ his  _ normally _ adult crewmate and friend, who scoffed and swatted away physical affection more often than he accepted it. 

Tiny Taako ducked out from under his hand and took two large steps backwards, into his own bubble and out of arm’s reach in the hallway. He sipped at his coffee, slurping exaggeratedly, and said, “Yeah no problem,” before turning and all but running to the kitchen. 

“Son of a bitch,” Barry mumbled to himself, and stared down at his coffee in wonder. Cream and sugar. Just the way he liked it. “Son of a bitch,” he repeated to himself, turned on heel, and went back to bed. 

  
  
  
  
  


Taako was juggling apples in the common room when Magnus found him later. He was standing on the couch, feet sinking into the cushions, wearing some of his and Lup’s clothes from their closet and a blanket tied around his neck like a cape. When he saw Magnus he froze in place, two of three apples clattering to the ground, and he leapt down off the couch with a suspicious expression on his face. 

He’d been rocking the same too-big pants, oversized shirt, and red robe combination since he’d gotten smaller. He was bathing, at least, spending more time in the shower than Magnus thought a person possibly  _ could _ , but changing back into the same thing every day. Now it was different. 

The skirt he was wearing was long and flowy, dark red and hanging down to Taako’s shins. He was wearing a sweatshirt over that, one that  _ actually _ belonged to Magnus, but the twins were notorious clothing thieves. It was dark blue with a time-worn IPRE logo crackling on the front of it. He had the sleeves rolled up and the hood synched tight over his head, leaving just his face and a tuft of hair poking out. It was tucked into the skirt. The kid looked a little bit ridiculous. 

That was fine, though. If there was ever a time to look ridiculous, it was during your second childhood on a spaceship. 

Which was why Magnus was here, anyways. He was bored out of his mind, and if Taako was anything like  _ Magnus _ remembered being at that age, he was about to go absolutely stir-crazy. So, two birds one stone. 

He said, “If you promise not to run away, we can go run around in the woods for a while.” 

And so there they were, in the woods. Taako had been a serious little soldier next to him for the first twenty minutes or so, shrugging away from conversations and rolling his eyes at Magnus’s game proposals. Eventually Magnus gave up trying to talk to him. A particularly nice tree caught his eye, one with a sturdy looking branch about seven feet up and enough branches above that to make his time worthwhile. 

He beamed at it and took off at a run, leaping when he was close enough and latching onto the bottom branch. He pulled himself up and over the branch, curling around it and clambering up to straddle it. He smiled down at Taako and waved, and Taako frowned up at him with crossed arms. 

“What are you  _ doing _ up there?” he complained, and Magnus laughed. 

“It’s called playing, little man.” 

“I’m not  _ little, _ ” Taako said, but Magnus was already ignoring him and climbing up higher in the tree. He tested the branches as he climbed, seeing which ones bent too much under his weight and which ones held firm. When he glanced back down at the forest floor, Taako was worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. Magnus swung a bit to hang upside down and look at Taako through his hair. 

“What, are you scared or something?” Magnus asked him, and Taako scoffed. 

“I’m not falling for that shit twice, I’m not an idiot,” Taako snapped. 

Magnus wasn’t surprised by that. He swung himself a bit and said, “Oh, I get it, you can’t climb this high. That’s fine.” 

“Shut  _ up _ ,” Taako snapped, and after just a moment more of squirming he wrinkled his nose up, ran at the tree, and propelled himself up with a quick burst of magic. He grabbed onto the branch, and hauled himself up with a good deal of kicking and slipping and grunting. With enough struggling, he finally got himself up with his stomach against the branch, and he scrambled up onto it properly, sagging belly-first onto it like a sloth dangling in the jungle. 

“You okay down there?” 

“Super,” Taako said. “Race you to the top.” 

They climbed four different trees during their hike, the last of which Magnus fell out of from about twelve feet up. He landed harmlessly, and Taako had nearly died laughing. They found a fallen tree and ran across it to cross over a stream, which they then followed all the way to a small pond deep in the woods. Their stream turned into a mini-waterfall as it tumbled down some rocks and into the shimmering pool, which was blocked in by huge trees and rocky landscape, totally shut off. Taako ran into the clearing and stood gaping with an gasp on his lips. 

Magnus followed him, stared in awe at the beautiful setting around him, and followed his first instinct. He tore his shirt over his head and tossed it onto a nearby rock, stooping down to start untying his boots. He got one set of laces undone and was hopping on one foot trying to pry it all the way off when he noticed Taako staring at him, his expression a little bit horrified. The boot came off with a pop that nearly knocked Magnus on his ass, but he caught himself and tossed it at a rock with his shirt, then straightened up properly. “What?” he asked. 

Taako sneered a little bit as he asked, “What are you  _ doing _ ?” 

Magnus untied and tugged off his other boot, then both of his socks. He said, “Um, swimming?” Because it was obvious, wasn’t it. Taako hadn’t moved at all, was still standing there fully dressed, arms wrapped around himself. “Come on, you  _ love _ swimming, dude.” 

“I don’t want--” 

Magnus shucked his pants off, leaving himself in his boxers, and this wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Taako  _ loved _ swimming. Anywhere they went with water, he and Magnus were the first ones in it, stripping down and leaping in head first, Magnus trying to coax everyone else in after them while Taako cast a breathing spell on himself and disappeared into the depths for as long as he could manage. They’d even gone skinny dipping that one time, with the spiced rum and the truth or dare and the giant talking goldfish. Taako always said swimming reminded him of his and Lup’s caravan days. “ _ Not a lotta bathtubs on the road, yaknow? _ ”

“You can’t swim in your clothes, man, you’ll sink right to the bottom,” Magnus reasoned, stooping down to test the water temperature with his fingers.  _ Perfect. _

Taako unrolled the sleeves so they covered his hands and seemed to sink down deeper into the hoodie. Was he… shy? Taako was known for being reserved, sure, but never shy. 

Magnus took a step closer to him and said, “Don’t be shy, just--” 

“I’m fine,” Taako said, “Really.” 

“Scared of some water? Hiding something weird under your shirt? Come on, bud--”

Taako took a step back, said, “What? No, I--”

“Don’t make me toss you in,” Magnus teased, reaching for him, and Taako freaked out. 

That was the only word for it. He leapt back, stumbling away, but his foot caught on something as he backpedaled and he hit the ground  _ hard _ . Magnus gasped and reached to help him up, but Taako scrambled back, away from Magnus, boots slipping in the mud as he screeched, “I said  _ no! _ ” 

Magnus froze midstep. Taako didn’t stop screaming. His back hit a downed log and he pressed back against it, knees pulled up, one arm cradled to his chest the other tangled in his hair, yelling all the while, “Don’t  _ touch _ me! Don’t  _ fucking touch me _ !” and he was shaking, full-body trembling,and his ears were flattened against his head and there were tears in his eyes, and Magnus felt like a  _ monster _ . 

“Shit,” he whispered, word just falling out of him, and he dropped down to kneel so he wouldn’t be  _ looming _ over the kid. Cause that’s what he’d been doing, wasn’t it? He was so tall, and Taako was so small like this, all giant eyes and shaky hands, having to crane his head almost all the way back to look Magnus in the eyes. No wonder he was petrified of him. Fuck.  _ Fuck. _

“Okay,” Magnus said, placating. “Okay, alright, we don’t have to go swimming, I just thought it would be fun, I didn’t mean to scare you, I’m sorry.”

Taako was still shaking, fingers digging into his hair and  _ tugging _ , like Barry during one of his panic attacks, and… fuck. 

“I’m not gonna touch you. I promise. You’re safe, okay? I’m gonna stand up and put my clothes back on, I’m not gonna touch you.” 

Taako said nothing, so Magnus crawled back a bit before standing and rushing off for the clothes he’d abandoned. He was such an idiot. Magnus was a grown man four times Taako’s size, and he’d taken all his damn clothes off and threatened to throw Taako into the water. Was he insane?

He tugged his pants and shirt back on haphazardly, carrying his socks and shoes in hand as he reapproached where Taako was still huddled on the ground, head now buried in his knees. As Magnus approached, Taako’s head popped back up, and he stared at Magnus with bared teeth and scowling eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Magnus said again, plopping down on the ground a good distance away from him. Out of arm's reach, for sure, but that didn’t stop Taako from watching him like a hawk. “That was dumb of me,” he said. “I got too wrapped up, was just having fun. I didn’t think of how scary that could be for you.” 

Taako was still shaking a bit, bottom lip quivering, as he said, “I’m not  _ scared. _ ” 

Magnus nodded, put his attention into his socks. “You’re brave,” Magnus adjusted. “Braver than you should have to be at this age.” Magnus had been a brave kid once upon a time. He thought about home, thought of his father, and suppressed the shudder than ran down his spine. He wasn’t as brave as Taako, though. Taako who-- if Merle was to be believed-- had been living alone in the woods since the time he could walk or whatever. Taako who apparently had very good reasons to be afraid. It made Magnus angry, now that the adrenaline had left him. Made his nerves sing with the need to know  _ who _ and  _ what _ made Taako look at him like that. Explain what it was about  _ swimming _ that sent Taako hurdling into a panic attack.

“Well that’s life,” Taako grumbled, and while he was relaxing significantly, leaning back against the log and uncurling his legs out in front of him, he was still cradling his arm to his chest like it pained him. Magnus frowned. 

“Are you hurt?” he asked, and Taako shook his head a bit too quickly. 

“I’m fine.” 

“You tried to catch yourself when you fell,” Magnus said. “That can fuck your joints up.”

Taako frowned at him, still holding his arm, and eventually answered, “My wrist hurts. It’s not broken, though. Doesn’t feel like that.” 

“Can I take a look?” Magnus asked instinctively, and then nearly slapped himself. Had he learned  _ nothing _ ? What was he--

Taako nodded. Magnus froze midthought and crawled over with slow, observable movements. He settled down next to Taako, still leaving a foot of space between them, and sat criss-cross applesauce. Taako bit his lip and fished his arm out of the sleeve, showing off a bony wrist under warm, freckled skin. His hands were still trembling. His wrist had some redness blooming around it, but sure to Taako’s word, it didn’t look broken. 

“Might have sprained it. Can I?” He held a hand out, and Taako nodded. Magnus was very careful about running his fingertips over Taako’s skin, and the flesh was hot to the touch under the redness. Similar to the injuries Magnus saw from ill-placed punches and bent wrists. He nodded, took his hands back to himself. 

“Bad news,” he said, voice dead-serious, and Taako’s eyes widened a little bit. Magnus drew the silence out for a count of one, two, three… “I think it’s gonna kill you.” 

Taako stared at him for a moment, gaping a bit, before his face split into a grin and laughter bubbled out of him. He laughed, hard, falling sideways against the log with it and relaxing entirely. Magnus laughed, pleased with himself, and scooted back into his own personal space. 

He finished lacing his boots up and watched Taako prod gently at his wrist out of the corner of his eye. He said, “I really am sorry I startled you.” 

Taako’s response was a pout and a grumbled, “Shouldn’t’a freaked out that bad….” 

Magnus felt the anger wash over him all over again. Taako was so  _ small _ . Whoever could hurt someone that small, whoever could make them shrink away like that deserved to have hell rain down on them. Magnus wanted to crack skulls. He wanted to wrap Taako up in a blanket and keep him safe. He said, “Just so you know,” casual, like he was making conversation. “If anyone ever hurts you, and I know about it, I’ll break both of their arms.” 

Taako stared at him for a moment, studiously. He blinked a few times, silence drawing out, and said, “Take out a knee while you’re at it.” 

Magnus grinned, and he climbed to his feet, and Taako clambered up next to him. They set back off into the woods, intending to finish their adventure and make it back to the Starblaster in time for dinner.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Lucretia tossed her bag across the threshold and slammed the door behind her as she came into their room that evening, groaning loudly and kicking her boots off in a series of uncharacteristic behaviors. Lup didn’t move from where she was sprawled out on the bottom bunk, chin propped up in her hand and legs kicked up behind her, book open on the mattress under her nose. 

“Long day, Lucy?” she asked, and Lucretia groaned again. 

She said, “I do not understand these people. Eight months. We’ve been here  _ eight months _ but every conversation feels like backpedaling. You’d think a library of  _ arc-mages _ would be willing to discuss magic, but the second I mention anything about time-altering or age-regression they slap those dumbfounded expressions onto their face like I’m speaking-- speaking-- speaking Spanish or something!” 

“What  _ is _ Spanish?” Lup asked, grinning a bit at the tyrade. 

Lucretia threw her hands into the air. “Exactly!” she cried. “Obviously the magic is possible. Could these people seriously have  _ no _ idea?” 

Lup sighed and rolled over onto her back, folding her arms under her head and kicking her feet up towards the ceiling. “They do take a rather lackadaisical approach to categorization. Makes me miss Tusun, that’s for sure.” 

“We knew what we were doing on Tusun,” Lucretia grumbled. “We  _ studied _ our magic. We didn’t take advantage of  _ shit _ .” 

True as her words were, any time Lucretia got worked up enough to start swearing was endlessly entertaining to Lup. She grinned at her, plucked a pillow off her bed, and tossed it in her direction. “You gonna be okay?”

“Probably,” Lucretia said, and then, “Yeah.” She dug through her bag and unearthed a journal, a pen, and a hair ribbon. She crossed the room and plopped down onto Lup’s bed, sitting cross legged and handing the ribbon over her shoulder. Lup sat up and took it, kneeling behind her and gathering Lucretia’s cloud of hair into something she could tie back out of her eyes. “Tell me about the prince. What did you two get up to today?” 

That reminded Lup of her good news, and she found herself smiling. “He says he has a  _ surprise _ tomorrow. You know what that means?” 

Lucretia was already scratching away in her notebook, pen tip sharp on the page, cursive scrawling. She wrote in loops like that when she was relaxed, wrote in pinched chicken-scratch when she was in a rush, and jotted down nearly incomprehensible shorthand when the situation called for ultimate efficiency. Lup combed her fingers through her hair as Lucretia answered, “He’s going to show you his penis.” Lup honked out a laugh. “Possibly the Light of Creation.” 

“His dick  _ is _ the Light of Creation,” Lup said, and Lucretia giggled. 

“Be careful, whatever it is. The prince is nice and all, but there’s something off about this place.” 

“I’ll do whatever it takes to save it when the Hunger strikes,” Lup told her, tying the ribbon securely and flopping back onto the bed. “So they can keep on being creepy weirdos forever.” 

Lucretia nodded. “A noble mission, truly.” 

“You fuckin’ know it, babe.” 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Art galleries, chess games, and slumber parties

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My bestest bud Max named the Prince. Sing their praises, I think I'm in love with this dopey OC.

Prince Landon Dazzlefield was a delightful boy. When they had first become acquainted with the oligarchs of this realm, Landon had been the first person to smile at them with any real sincerity, shake all of their hands, and offer them a tour of the facilities. He’d been perfectly polite to everyone, but had seemed especially enamored with Lup. As he pointed out the gardens from a overlooking balcony, Lup had thumped him on the shoulder companionably and said, “Oh, you're just  _ dazzling _ , aren’t you?”

He’d giggled like a schoolboy, hiding a blush behind a polite curtaining his face, while Taako and Magnus fake-gagged in the background and Lucretia snickered into the notes she was politely taking. 

That, in the end, had been  _ that _ . Eight months into this adventure and Lup and Lucretia were the only ones keeping their connection with the oligarchs. Everyone else in the courts had been aloof and ice-cold, hard to get information-- let alone fraternity-- out of, but Prince Landon Dazzlefield had endless energy for companionship and entertainment. He was happy for the chance to befriend  _ anyone _ and in exchange was an easy source of information on the lives of the oligarchs.

Unfortunately, Landon only had so much information to give.

“Bubeleh, are you leading me on some illicit adventure here?” Lup asked, and while Landon didn’t respond, the airiness of his laughter suggested mischief. He clutched tight to her hand, a necessity of the invisibility charm she was casting, something simple she’d learned…. Gods, she’d learned it so long ago she couldn’t even remember the source. She didn’t know much illusion magic, but this one was a staple. 

The Prince thought it was absolutely enchanting. 

“ _ I’m not allowed to practice magic _ ,” Landon had said once. “ _ Only the mages in the archives are, and the-- _ ” he’d stuttered to a stop after that, trailing off before quickly switching gears, obviously about to say something he shouldn’t. Lup just added it to her mental list of mysteries. 

Some mysteries were easier solved than others. She was holding out hope about this little escapade, so confident that he was finally showing her the Light of Creation. She was memorizing every turn they took, every hall and passageway, to replicate later. She was getting the feeling that the end of the world would hit before they felt comfortable enough to hand the light over willingly. 

Lup didn’t have that kind of  _ time,  _ so she was planning a heist.

She loved heists. 

This heist did not end at the Light, however, it ended at a doorway barely noticeable where it was set into the wall, that Landon knocked on four times before shoving into it with his shoulder. It gave underneath him, and he stumbled through, pulling Lup in as well to tumble down a three-step drop and into a wide, long hallway. 

The floors were hard cold stone in a mosaic of colors, skylights filling the room with a soft glow from the overcast sky, and the walls were lined in massive floor to ceiling portraits. The paintings stood twelve feet tall, the figures within them towering and regal, staring down at Lup and her Prince with elite emotionlessness. 

Lup straightened up and dropped both the invisibility and Landon’s hand as she stepped further into the room, craning her head back to view the portraits in their entirety. Landon trotted up next to her, hanging off of her arm as they went and pointing out different figures in the room. 

“There’s the Lambs,” he said, indicating a couple of young adults in heavy-looking furs dyed a brilliant indigo. They scowled down their noses at the only animated people in the room, and Lup felt the familiar spine-shiver that came from feeling the eyes of a painting were following you. 

Landon pointed out others: the grand judge Ira, Calrizio Fandango and her beloved partners, some cheeseball named Babcock Luvington who wore floofy scarves tied tight around his neck and decorated his face with a series of pearls set into his skin.

Another section of the hall showed the arc-mages from the libraries, all of them wearing identical grey-scale tunics and dreadful expressions. Their exhaustion seeped out of the paint and set into Lup’s bones. 

Further down she noticed the portraits started to repeat, the same oligarchy as before, in different clothes and style. “You again?” she asked, pointing out a painting of Landon and his parents, two tightly wound women who smiled with thin lips and steely eyes, a hand on each of his shoulders. 

He smiled, laughed, said, “Yeah, from earlier on.” 

The figures in that portrait were absolutely indistinguishable from the previous, aside from wardrobe. Untouched by time, apparently, and Lup had questions about that, but she wasn’t sure the best way to ask them. 

Once she’d inquired about Landon’s age, and he’d simply shrugged and said, “ _ I don’t see why it matters. I’m in my prime. How old are you _ ?” 

She’d answered simply, “ _ One hundred twenty-two, _ ” and the look of delighted shock that overtook his features would have been enough to tease him over. There was no chance for teasing, though, as a headache set in so ferociously that he’d had to escort her back to her quarters so she could lie down.

Lup was reminded of the memory by the headache currently creeping into the back of her skull, wrapping around and aching deep in her ears. She flicked her ears a few times, shook it off, and elected to ignore it as long as she could bear it. 

“Earlier on, huh?” she asked him, and he simply nodded, took her hand, and pulled her along further. 

“There’s more,” he told her. “This one’s my favorite. It was the very first one we had done.” 

He led her to the end of the hall, to a set of portraits that seemed to be the most heavily aged. She peered closely at it, finding herself at knee level with the figures pictured, though she knew what they looked like at this point. The paint was chipping in places, cracked like the ones she’d seen in museums on Tusun. It had a musk to it, a tell-tale scent of aging, like the dust in the old chests in their auntie’s attic, with the old linens hiding dead moths. The immaculate gold plated frame was cracking at the corners, revealing the wood underneath. 

“It seems ancient…” she murmured, and a spike of pain shot through the back of her skull as her ears began to ring. 

Landon frowned at her, nervous, and asked, “Are you feeling alright?” 

They left shortly after that. Lup was grateful to track Lucretia down and spend the rest of the day with the two of them sprawled out under a tree in the courtyard. She yearned for actual  _ sunlight _ to peek through the clouds and warm her skin, wanted to lay out on a rock like a lizard and soak it all in. This was nice regardless. Lucretia nearby, doodling idly and humming with a pen in her hair and ink stains on her fingers. Lup’s head in the prince’s lap, his fingers dancing reverently over the long point of her ears, gentle voice practically  _ worshipping _ in his observations as he counted freckles and braided flowers into her hair. She let him dote and chewed on her new mystery, wondering over how to present the details to Lucretia later, when they had time to themselves. 

Wondering whether they could steal away to the hall of portraits during the night and get a better look. Lucretia would notice details she wouldn’t, surely, and Lup would have the privacy to search for magic without raising suspicions. 

  
  
  


* * *

Merle was playing chess with Davenport the next time it happened. The ship had been pretty quiet that day, everyone keeping to themselves after breakfast, and Merle had nearly forgotten the little rascal was onboard until he came tearing onto the deck a few hours before sunset. 

His hair was ratted up like he’d been sleeping and hadn’t bothered to brush it, and he was running around in an oversized t-shirt, his red robe, and nothing else. Taako came scrambling onto the deck with bare feet and a giant grin, yelling, “Check it out! It’s better!” 

He ran straight into their table, slapping his hands down and jostling the pieces so that Merle’s queen took a nosedive off the edge. Davenport smirked, obviously considering it a victory on his part, until Taako shoved his arm under Davenport’s nose. 

Sure enough, the injury was gone. Taako hadn’t let him heal it, but he’d hesitantly accepted the elastic bandage and ice pack Davenport nudged at him. It would have been an easy thing to fix, a quick spell or even half a healing potion, but Taako was dubious about all of it and they’d learned not to press their luck with him. 

“Did you shrink again?” Merle asked. He didn’t look any different, except for the arm. No significant loss of height, no major physical changes. 

He shrugged his skinny shoulders and said, “How’m I supposed to know? I threw up, I took a nap, and my arm got better. Easy peasy.” 

“Easy peasy,” Davenport echoed, nodding sagely, and Taako glowed. 

Merle sighed heavily. “We’ll check you out after dinner, how’about that? Davenport owes me a rematch.” 

Taako leaned into the table, balancing his weight on his elbows and kicking his feet in the air. He asked, “Can I play?” and then, “Can’ya teach me?” 

“You wanna learn how to play chess?” Merle asked him, and Taako grinned. 

“I can learn. I already know quarters and blackjack and seven-stacks.” This was the most sociable their small Taako had ever been around Merle, and Merle wasn’t quite sure he trusted it. Taako added, “I’m  _ bored _ . Teach me, come on, then we can bet on it.”

Merle said, “You don’t bet on chess.”

And Davenport mumbled, “Well you  _ could… _ ” 

“You can bet on  _ anything _ ,” Taako told him, then turned the force of his pleading on Davenport instead. “C’mon, Captain,  _ please _ ?” he begged, and Davenport caved.

Merle protested, “Do you even have  _ money? _ ” 

He was promptly ignored by the rugrat when Davenport said, “Climb on up, then,” and invited the kid to clamber onto the chair and squeeze in next to him, legs dangling under the armrest. When they’d first met the kid he’d been reluctant to be touched at all, and even now he flinched away from sudden movements and practically hissed if Merle or Magnus tried to touch him. He’d apparently decided Davenport wasn’t a threat, though, as he sagged into the gnome’s side and rolled a pawn between his fingers. 

_ Weird kid, _ he mused as Davenport gave the kid a rundown of the basic rules and strategies. He was a weird kid when he was grown up too, though. Merle decided maybe he didn’t mind him so much.

  
  


* * *

These were the things Barry knew: 

  * The atmosphere on this plane was thick but benevolent. The temperature had been about 15° celsius the entire cycle, and the sun had not broken through once.



  * Civilization was neither kind nor malicious. They welcomed the crew with quiet confusion and did not ask questions. They were governed by a council of what they called “oligarchs,” although the intricacies of their governing system that Lucretia detailed did not match the definition of “oligarchy” they’d known on Tusun.



  * Civilization was also entirely human-adjacent, mean height of 65 inches, no persons seen exceeding 72 inches. Magnus feels “especially tall” these days.



  * Magic was confined to the archives and the “Big n’Spooky” that attacked Taako. The arc-mages practiced simple elemental magic, some evocation and illusion, very little transmutation, and absolutely no necromancy. 



  * Nobody seemed to know about the “Big n’Spooky” when questioned, but he definitely existed, considering the Taako Situation™. 



  * Taako had aged down approximately 90 years, and was continuing to age at a steady pace of approximately three years every few days. These “episodes” were characterized by a fainting spell and the appearance of a red spectre. 



  * They had not managed to study or measure the red spectre in any way. The magic signature on the age-magic affecting Taako was nearly incomprehensible.



  * The Light of Creation was kept somewhere within the governing castle of the oligarchs. Lup’s connection to one of these oligarchs promises access eventually, but time is running short, and eyes have not been on the Light yet. Lup says she’s “working on it.” 



Barry had thought writing the list would make him feel better, but as he stared down at his own chicken-scratch he felt his frustration simmer closer to a boil. He knew  _ nothing _ , and the people here knew  _ nothing _ . He scoffed and tossed the pad of paper across the room, aiming at the trash bin and missing terribly. He’d pick it up later and put it back on the bookcase where it belonged. He wasn’t  _ wasteful _ . He was just tired. 

He ought to turn in for bed. The clock was creeping closer and closer to morning, and there was no use of sitting here and fretting. He’d end up looking over the spell diagrams, or Lucretia’s notes from the castle, of even Merle’s plant journal. And it would all tell him exactly what Barry already knew--  _ nothing _ . 

He was just working up the energy to stand up and drag himself off to bed when the door to the lab creaked open. He was expecting Davenport-- coming in to chase him off, probably-- or Magnus-- asking if he wanted to go for a late-night jog-- or Merle, maybe-- with a cup of tea or a joint. It was none of them; instead it was a head of shiny gold hair and a pair of floppy pointed ears poking through the crack of the doorway, then a pair of big eyes and a little stub nose. 

Barry stared at him, and Taako stared back, and eventually, Barry cleared his throat and said, “Isn’t it a bit early for coffee?” 

Taako took that as an invitation and let himself in the rest of the way, swinging on the doorknob and then leaning up against the counter, fingers busy fidgeting with a few well-used lumps of chalk that left his tan skin dusty and pale. He didn’t say anything. 

Barry tried again, “Couldn’t sleep?” and Taako shook his head. 

“I don’t sleep good most of the time,” was his answer, “And I never learned to meditate, so….” He trailed off, shrugged, and pulled his blanket tighter around himself. He buried his nose into the fabric gathered under his neck. It was an old thing, something Merle crocheted a dozen cycles ago. They kept it on the couch, and it always smelled like lavender, though none of them were really sure how that was. 

“Adult Taako doesn’t like to meditate either,” Barry told him, and watched Taako’s nose wrinkle up a little as his ears flicked down.

Taako said, “Figured I would have gotten better at being an elf by then,” and Barry’s first response was a laugh, which was obviously the wrong response based on Taako’s embarrassed scowl. 

He smiled apologetically. “What do you mean ‘better at being an elf’?” 

Taako started scratching the nub of chalk on the counter, grinding it down to dust. He griped with a curled lip, “Well it’s not all born talent, kemosabe. You don’t just pop out of the forest meditating and writing in Elvish. Auntie taught us the alphabet, but,” he shrugged again. 

“You guys learn how to write in Elvish,” Barry consoled. “You learn a knack for languages. During our first cycle, you and Lup learn a language that only animals can speak, and you teach it to me, and we spend the next five years gossiping about everyone right in front of their faces.” 

That cheered Taako up, and he grinned a little, ran his finger through the pile of dust he’d made. “Is that why you know Lup and I’s language?” he asked. 

This time Barry grinned. “That one I figured out by myself.” 

Taako narrowed his eyes at that. He picked up a pinch of dust and flicked it in Barry’s direction, saying, “I knew you seemed like a sneak. Lup says you’re too smart for your own good.”

Sometimes the things this Taako did looked so much like his full-grown counterpart that Barry found the air knocked clean out of him. Here he was, wrinkling his nose up at Barry and pelting him with chalk, and he could have been twenty-four or a century older. Gods, Barry missed him. 

Taako puffed his cheeks up and blew the dust off the counter and into a big cloud. He watched it dance in the air, and Barry flicked his wrist in a quick cantrip, making the dust dance and swirl into a tiny tornado on the countertop. Taako watched in bored fascination. 

He said, “I never sleep good when Lup’s not around.” 

That was something Barry had been wondering about. Lup had beefed it three times so far, but only once without Taako going down with her. That cycle without her had left Taako a sullen shell of an elf, floating through the halls of the ship at night, not bothering to hide the shadows that darkened his eyes and the way his cheeks sunk. He fell into fitful trances in the common room, grew snappish and fragile, and after they’d all pestered him badly enough he’d cast sleep on  _ himself _ right where he stood, dropped to the ground like dead weight, and slept where they dragged him to the couch for fifteen hours solid. 

They were no strangers to hard cycles and sleepless nights, and Taako was looking a little too heartbroken for his liking. 

“You know, future-you taught me this kick-ass hot chocolate recipe,” Barry cautioned. A single ear quirked up. 

Taako glanced at him sideways. “Does it have cinnamon in it?”

Barry nodded. He stood and retrieved his notepad off the floor, tossing it onto the desk for later. “Yeah, and rice instead of marshmallows.” 

“Alright, you’ve won me over. Lead the way Mister Doctor Bluejeans.” 

Barry snuck a quick glance at the clock. It was nearly three in the morning. Almost early enough to pour coffee into his hot chocolate, but he’d give it at least another hour before he gave up on sleep altogether. He hid a yawn behind his fist and padded off to the kitchen, Taako traipsing along behind him. 

“Why do we  _ call _ you that anyways?” 

  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
  


Davenport finds them in the common room the next morning. Taako is curled up fast asleep in a nest of blankets and pillows he’s thrown together at one end of the sofa. Barry had abandoned a blanket and pillow on the recliner and was in the middle of picking mugs up off the coffee table when Davenport wandered in. 

He grinned, nodded a ‘good morning,’ and followed Davenport into the kitchen. While Davenport put on a cup of coffee, Barry rinsed the mugs out in the sink, and he said, “We should visit the girls in town. I think Taako’s really missing his sister.” 

“Is that what prompted the slumber party?” 

Barry was grinning, looking equal parts embarrassed and pleased with himself as he said, “I think he’s starting to trust me.” He thought for a moment. “He didn’t fall asleep until after I did, but… still.” 

“It’s definitely an improvement.” 

The quiet of their morning was broken by Magnus shouting in the living room. “Aw man!” he whined. “You guys had a sleepover  _ without me _ !?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a shorter chapter than the others, but I wanted to post it before work. I do sixteen-hour shifts, so I'm basically out of commission the days during and after.
> 
> BUT this contains some necessary filler. Our boy continues to shrink. What's up with that? Believe it or not, I actually have the entire plot thought out for this one (weird, I know, don't we usually wing these things???) and my friends. It's gonna be dope. I'm incredibly excited about this story. Give me two more chapters or so for some BIG Action and DOpe Magicks and all that. 
> 
> For now, Taako is making friends. I already miss shitty middle school Taako, but pre-teen Taako is a whole treasure of his own. And like Merle warned us. Soon, /preschooler/.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys take a trip into town to visit Lup and Lucretia and some weird things unfold around them. Taako throws some punches, Barry gets arrested, and the gang almost drops a royal crown in the lake. 
> 
> This chapter, we get to see our mean, vicious, baby Taako grow a little bit softer with the crew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously on, THE ADVENTURE ZONE: 
> 
> Taako got de-aged into a young teenager with no recollection of the crew and their mission at all. With Lup's help, they've managed to calm him down and befriend him, but despite all of Barry's investigations they still have no clue what caused it all in the first place (besides, of course, the Big n' Spooky).
> 
> Meanwhile, Lup's been getting strange headaches and making some stranger discoveries with the oligarchs. Magnus and Taako went on a little adventure that ended in Taako hurting his arm, but when he de-aged again shortly after, the injury was gone. 
> 
> During an accidental slumber party with Barry, Taako confessed to missing his sister. So they decide to pay her a visit. 
> 
> AND you're all caught up! Taako is somewhere around nine years old (23) in this chapter.

So maybe Merle didn’t terribly mind having the kid around. There were complications, of course, but now that the little guy had outgrown (ungrown…?) whatever pubescent nightmare hurricane he’d unleashed upon the ship, he wasn’t so bad. Kids weren’t exactly Merle’s style, and it was pretty weird seeing their once-grown crewmate running around the deck playing tag with Magnus for  _ several _ hours, but the little guy wasn’t all that bad. 

Of course, it figured that as soon as Merle admitted that to himself, something would go wrong. 

They were walking through the central markets of the city on their way to the oligarch’s castle when it happened. Magnus and Taako were still engaged in their tag game, darting around the others and between strangers as they took turns trying to tap each other-- and then, when Davenport sighed and asked if we could  _ please _ stop drawing unwanted attention, they started walking calmly side-by-side and occasionally reaching out to smack the other if they thought they weren’t paying attention, and occasionally Barry, who looked a little frazzled about being involved in the game. 

But with those two keeping the little guy occupied, Merle didn’t bother worrying himself with it. He was far too preoccupied trying to make it through the crowd at all, when everyone around stood a full foot taller than him, leaving him with a crowded view of pectorals and little else. Davenport was having a hard go of it as well, stuck at groin level with about everyone they encountered, and when Taako suggested they hold hands so that Davenport didn’t get lost, his eye twitched with carefully held-together patience. 

He should have held Taako’s hand, in retrospect. Or  _ someone _ should have, apparently. He’d been trusting the two full-grown and full-height dipshits to keep an eye on the guy, but while Merle was getting shoved to-and-fro by the bustling crowd and grumbling to himself about how  _ ‘at least Tusun had manners about different species heights…’ _ he managed to lose his whole party at once. 

They were there, and then they were gone.

Merle was alone.

The planet locals didn’t even register as Merle elbowed his way between tall sweaty bodies and stumbled into an open clearing at the side of the road, moving in the direction he’d thought he’d seen his party go. Unfortunately, when he broke through the crowd he found himself still alone. No Davenport. No Barry. No Magnus, and no squirt. 

He was near the back of a few stalls manned by merchants so busy trying to dissuade possible thieves that they didn’t notice Merle snagging one of their crates and climbing upon it, hoping to get a view over the crowd. A few moments of scanning and rising blood pressure, and he eventually saw Barry, tall enough to stick up a few inches above the rest of the crowd as he bobbed along, getting pulled by with the stream of people and looking around near frantically.

“Barry!” Merle shouted, waving his arms around. “Aye-oh, Care Bear! Barry Bluejeans! Hey!” 

Barry perked up like he heard Merle, but he continued to glance around without any direction. He paused, turned, started heading off in the other direction. 

Merle muttered a few choice words to himself as he hopped back down and dove back into the crowd, shoving his way through as quickly as possible and not being too shy about giving out charlie horses as he hurried in what he hoped was Barry’s direction. Thankfully, Barry hadn’t made it very far. When Merle finally caught sight of him again and got close enough, he grabbed a handful of Barry’s cloak to anchor them and slapped him on the hip to get his attention. 

“Ow!” Barry said, whirling around angrily, and then beaming. “Oh thank Pan,  _ Merle! _ Shit, hold on…” 

He dragged them a short way through the crowd, until they found a wall to lean against, creating a nice pocket for people to stream around them rather than dragging them with. Merle didn’t give up his grip on the cloak, not trusting his luck. 

“Where is everyone?” Barry asked, and Merle shrugged. 

“You tell me, genius, I can’t see shit out there.” 

Barry frowned and stood up on his toes to glance around, hoping to see anyone else from their party getting shoved along. After about thirty seconds of looking, he huffed and ducked back down, hunching a bit to be closer to eye level. “Do you think someone has Taako?” he asked. “Cap’n or Magnus probably stuck to him, right?” He worried himself with that question for a moment before perking up and snapping his fingers. 

“I’ll just use a locating spell. They can’t be more than a thousand feet away, it hasn’t been that long,” he said, digging through his pockets a bit frantically and eventually unearthing a little tuft of fur, held together in a bundle with a bit of glue and a tightly bound sting. He started going through the motions of the spell, crossing the fur over his heart, lips, both eyelids, and then pressing it to his forehead. But no sooner did he squeeze his eyes shut and start searching, an ear splitting  **_BANG!_ ** rang out nearby, startling both of them into jumping and breaking Barry’s concentration. 

Considering the unmagical state of the population and general lack of fire-powered machinery, there were only a few options for what that could have been, and a Magic Missile going off was top of the list. Wordlessly, Barry and Merle took off back into the crowd, pushing against it and rushing in the direction of the din. The closer they grew, the more sound they could make out. Shouting, yelling, the noise of a scuffle. A very familiar voice cried, “Get the fuck off’a me!” and they skidded into the mouth of an alley to see Taako flailing wildly in the arms of a stranger. 

“Hey!” Merle barked. “Drop the kid!” 

A helmet clad head popped up, surprised, and Taako dropped to the ground with a few well-placed elbows and knees. Taako scrambled away from him while Barry drew his wand and advanced, and Merle took a quick look at the guy-- a silver chest plate decorated with a complicated crest and a large charred missile mark, which matched the one on their helmet, and a roughed up looking uniform underneath-- before Taako skidded past him and the guard took off running. Barry took off after him, and Merle reached and arm out to snag the elfling before he fled altogether.

He was panting, sweaty and red-faced, eyes wide and frantic as Merle held him at arms length. “I didn’t do anything!” he sputtered out. “They-- they just grabbed me-- I didn’t--” 

He tried to tug his way out of Merle’s hold, but Merle held onto him. “Are you hurt anywhere?” he asked, looking the kid over, “Are you okay? Did they hurt you?” 

There was a bruise on his cheek bone, right next to the left eye, and the longer Merle looked him over the harder he shook. “Pan, who knows what coulda happened to you,” Merle muttered as he closed his eyes and pressed a hand to the middle of Taako’s forehead. “Don’t you ever scare us like that again, you hear me?” 

“I wasn’t-- I…” Taako shuddered as the healing spell washed through him. He swallowed hard, muttered, “Don’t touch me,” and slumped back against the wall bonelessly. Barry ran back over, bracing his hands on his knees to catch his breath, and Taako slid down the wall to sit on the ground. He still looked pretty shell-shocked, and terribly small sitting at their feet like that. Merle plopped down next to him, and after a bit of wheezing Barry flopped down on his other side. He took his glasses off and scrubbed the sweat off his face. Taako leaned over sideways against Barry’s arm, drawing his knees up to his chest and shrinking. 

“Thanks…” he muttered, glancing over sideways at Merle, and then quickly away. “For helping. I coulda handled it.” 

“Handled it pretty well, I’d say. Magic Missile to the chest is your specialty, huh?” 

Taako swallowed hard, face heating up a bit. He pressed a bit closer to Barry, trying to look like that wasn’t what he was doing. “It works better than thunderclap,” he murmured. “I don’t know a lotta defensive spells.” 

“You did great,” Barry soothed. 

Merle asked, “What’s a kid like you need that much fire power for, anyways?” and Taako turned to him with a confused frown. 

He said, “Gotta keep Lup and me safe,” with the ‘ _ duh _ ’ tone of voice, like it was obvious. Barry tugged his arm free and wrapped it around Taako’s shoulders, pulling him in closer. 

He asked, “This kind of thing happen before?” and Taako curled up a bit tighter. 

“I don’t wanna talk about this anymore,” he said. He kicked his legs out, but dropped his head against Barry’s chest and stayed there, letting himself be held for the first time since he’d gotten shrunk. It had taken adult Taako a while to accept anyone touching him, too, and it had probably been well into a decade when he’d finally accepted hugs that lasted more than a couple of seconds. “Thanks for the healing,” he added. “You really didn’t have to do that. I woulda been fine.” 

And well that kind of stoic attitude from a toddler was just heart-breaking. “You’re our boy,” Merle said, “It’s our job to take care of you.” He patted Taako on the knee, and though Taako glanced at him sideways, he didn’t flinch or pull away from him. Instead, after a few long seconds, he closed his eyes, almost seemed to doze off against Barry’s chest. 

Barry shot Merle a wide-eyed glance over the kid’s head, and Merle just shrugged back in response. 

And that was when the rest of their team came thundering into the alleyway, and Taako’s head shot back up at the noise. He scrambled up to his feet just in time for Lup to swing him up into her arms, Magnus following hot on her tail. 

“Are you  _ okay!?” _ she asked, squeezing him tight enough that he squeaked and launching into an explanation of hearing the noise and running into Magnus, who was buzzing around nervously, looking for somebody to fight, while Davenport assessed his small crowd with a studying eye. When Barry asked, he explained that Lucretia was waiting near the castle with the prince, who would be joining them on their outing today, curious about the magical state of his muse’s now-shrunken twin.

After enough fussing, Taako whined and squirmed his way out of Lup’s arms and slipped out of arm’s reach, looking far less shaken than he had earlier but easily twice as rumpled. They decided to set back off, following Lup to their meeting place. Magnus and Barry brought up the back of their travelling formation, keeping a close eye on their surroundings, and Davenport kept a tight grip on both Taako’s hand and the back of Lup’s cloak, determined that the party would  _ not _ be separated this time, even though Taako complained about it. 

As they neared the castle, Merle slipped up to the front and caught Lup’s attention. Certain that whatever story Davenport was telling had Taako’s full attention, he pulled her down a bit and whispered to her, “It was one of the oligarch’s guard-guys that grabbed Taako earlier.” 

She frowned, ears flitting back. “You’re sure?” she asked, and when he nodded, her expression grew serious. 

“Think your fancy-lad will know anything about it?” he asked her. 

“I guess we’ll have to find out.” She glanced back over her shoulder, to the crowd in front of them, and then down at Merle. “Is he okay?” 

Merle let out a little chuckle. “Of course he is. He’s tough as nails, you know that.” He added, “Healed him up, too. He’s alright, really.”

She grinned with half of her mouth. “Thanks, old man.” 

And while Merle scoffed and sputtered at that comment, they were interrupted with a bit of shouting. “Hey!” Lucretia’s voice called, and there she was, standing up on the ledge of the wrought iron fencing surrounding the castle, waving them down and smiling. Next to her stood a young man in fancy robes, a shiny crown nestled against his curls and a polite smile on his face. He waved, a bit more calmly than his counterpart, and Merle watched the determination set in the smile on Lup’s face. 

They had some mysteries to solve. 

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Despite earlier excitement, it was a  _ beautiful _ day outside. The sun was never visible on this planet, tucked too far away behind a thick pink atmosphere that glowed like sunset during all waking hours of the day, and it would always be unnerving to look at the sky and  _ not _ see two suns circling around them, but Davenport couldn’t deny he liked the more moderate temperatures. Ninety degree weather had been  _ normal _ back on Tusun, but here the mid-sixties temperatures were quite relaxing. 

They intended to spend their time out in the palace gardens, and while it had originally been a social call so that Taako could spend some time with his sister, there were a few important matters that needed discussing first. Especially when they had one of the oligarchs at their disposal. 

Magnus had been the one to see the “Big n’ Spooky” during that first fateful encounter, and Merle had gotten the closest look at the guard today that had tried to take Taako. Lup knew the most about Taako and had had the most meaningful conversations with him about his current state, and Barry had been closely examining all the magical and scientific information they could gather about the situation. Lucretia, of course, was needed to write everything down. 

So, Davenport took the role of babysitting. 

It wasn’t nearly as difficult as it could have been. While Taako had once been frightful, angry, and wholly unimpressed by everything around him, he’d started to settle down and warm up as time progressed. Davenport wasn’t sure if that was due to the age regression or an increased comfort level with the crew, but either way, these days he could hardly be considered “difficult to manage.” 

Currently he was sprawled out belly-down on a large slab rock at the edge of a small, man-made pond in the garden. He pillowed his head on a folded arm and ran his fingers gently over the top of the water. His eyes were closed, and Davenport wondered if he laid a hand on Taako’s back, if he would feel him purring. Instead of doing that, though, he sat beside him quietly, enjoying the shade of a large tree and the plush of well-maintained grass underneath him. 

For such an abysmal city, they sure kept a fine garden. Perhaps the oligarchs needed to reassess their priorities. 

“You could go swimming,” Davenport suggested at one point, and Taako’s reply was a noncommittal hum. “I’m sure they wouldn’t mind.” 

Who could get terribly worked up over a child swimming in a pond, anyways? And even if they did, this was  _ Davenport’s _ child, in a sense. There wouldn’t be any issue.

“Nah,” Taako said, voice sleepy. “I’m good right here.” 

A bit more time passed, and Davenport watched the leaves on a tree nearby sway gently as a breeze blew by. Taako shivered with it, pulled his hand out of the water. 

“I miss fishing,” he said, rolling over and flopping onto his back. He draped both arms over his eyes, tugged the cuffs of his sleeves down to unroll and fall over his hands. If this shrinking business kept up, they would have to reconsider new clothing. Everything he wore now was already several sizes too large for him, but it was still manageable. Davenport wasn’t sure how far all of this was going to progress, but…. Well, he had some casual clothes lying around that he certainly wouldn’t mind lending out for a while, and small children were usually unconcerned with the clothing they put on anyways. 

They would sort that out when they got to it. 

“Where did you learn to fish?” Davenport asked, and was met with half of a shrug. He’d known that Taako enjoyed the activity, but he wouldn’t have guessed it was a hobby from so far back in his childhood. 

“Eh,” Taako answered. “Our grandpa taught me. He said it was a good way to keep me busy and make me useful-- HA! Think he just wanted to not have to look at me for a little while. All the other chores were too close to the house, but the river was a whole mile away through the woods. He’d put a pole in my hands and I’d be gone for  _ hours _ .” 

Davenport nodded, added this estranged (and lost to the Hunger) grandfather to the running list of people he’d consider revenge upon, if he ever found himself with a chance and a mood for vengeance. 

“When did you live with him?” Davenport asked, and he knew he was pushing it, which was why he was surprised that Taako answered without issue.

“We were….” he trailed off, opened his eyes to count on his fingers for a moment. “Fifteen,” he decided. “I think. We were still real little. Mam-- our mother had all of us live with him for a little while, but then she decided to… anyways. We were stuck with him for like… five or six years before our auntie took us in.”

Taako huffed out a breath and pushed his hair up and off of his face. He rolled his head to look over at Davenport, squinting a little, and said, “You gotta return the favor now. Tell me about your family.” 

And so Davenport did. It wasn’t much longer before the others finished their conversation and made their way over to the pond to join them. The prince looked a tad bit pale-- which, of course, Davenport knew how overwhelming his crew could be when they were pursuing a mystery-- but he followed diligently at Lup’s heals as she ran over scooped her brother off the ground, threatening to throw him into the water. 

Lucretia met Davenport’s eyes and motioned him over, and the two of them tucked back behind a row of hedges. They sat on the ground with Lucretia’s notes open before them as she recounted the conversation they’d just had. 

“He didn’t know they were sending the guards after Taako,” she told him. “Shoot, apparently  _ anyone _ could have sent them, or they could have noticed him and taken it upon themselves to investigate. Apparently there’s not a lot of children in the population. He said they’re….” she paused, running her finger through her notes before landing on what she was looking for. “‘Well accounted for’ is what he said. Which is… well, it’s weird, and he wouldn’t elaborate any further on it. Said he ‘wasn’t allowed to talk about it,’ which honestly, after spending so much time here, is a pretty basic answer for these people.

“He doesn’t know about the wizard bitch that--” she paused when Davenport let out a surprised squawk of something akin to laughter. “Sorry… is that not what you guys are calling him?” 

Davenport rubbed at his eyes and said, “Barry has been using the title ‘Big n’Spooky.’” 

“That is so much worse,” she deadpanned. “Anyways, wizard bitch isn’t something he knows about either. At least, he  _ says _ he doesn’t, but with so many things he’s ‘not allowed’ to talk about, I’m not sure I believe him. We might have found ourselves the most useless source in the oligarchy, if I’m being honest. He doesn’t know any magic whatsoever, he doesn’t know about the wizards or the age regression, he doesn’t know a thing about Lup’s headaches…”

“Headaches?” 

“It’s this whole thing. I’ll have Barry show you the notes.” 

“Roger.” 

“Basically, all we managed to figure out was that Prince Dazzlefield knows nothing. The arc-mages know more than he does, and  _ they’re _ useless.” 

There wasn’t much farther they could take the conversation, but even if they’d wanted to, it would have been quickly dead-ended by the swiftly approaching figures making their way across the gardens in their direction.

“Oh wow,” Lucretia said, quickly standing and offering a hand up that Davenport took. They ducked back between the hedges to join the rest of the crew, who seemed to be distracted by a pretty rigorous game of keep away they were all playing with the prince’s crown. Taako was laughing himself breathless. Magnus had Lup thrown over his shoulder as he tried to wrestle the crown away from her, and the prince himself had collapsed nearby, shaking with laughter. Barry was… hm. Missing in action.

The ladies approached closer. Lucretia hissed out a,  _ “Lup _ !” and when that didn’t work, a “ _ Your highness! Landon!” _ And when that failed to catch anyone’s attention, she picked up a fruit that had fallen from a nearby tree and chucked it into the fray. It bounced off of Magnus’s shoulder, and Taako snuck around behind him to pick it up and investigate it. 

Lucretia waved her arms around a bit, gave a few signals for the others to  _ look. over. there. please.  _ And they did, just in time for the ladies to approach and stand tall, unphased before them. Magnus turned to look at them and sat Lup sheepishly back on her own two feet. Landon picked himself up off the ground, and there was a quick exchange of the crown to its proper owner. Landon smashed it back onto his head. 

Taako took a bite of the fruit, gagged, and spit it back out into the grass. 

One of the ladies raised an eyebrow. 

“Landon, I’m not sure this is a proper way for a prince to conduct himself,” one of them said, pinching her lips together tightly and staring him down. And though Landon was well into his early twenties, he still grimaced and hung his head, downcasting his eyes towards their shoes. 

The other looked over the crew, seemed to hesitate between Davenport and Lup, and eventually turned her attention to Davenport. “We have found one of yours snooping about in the halls. He was using some sort of invisibility magic, which is expressly forbidden by the council under any circumstances. We will release him to you, but only under the condition that you return to your ship. Promptly.” 

The other pivoted her attention back to Lup and spoke. “We have a good rapport established, so we are willing to forgive some mistakes,” she said. “However. Some of the questions you and your people have been asking are  _ not _ appropriate. I am sorry for the condition of your….” she paused, pursed her lips, and looked over at Taako as the other lady picked up her train of thought. 

“...Little one,” she provided, “But there is simply nothing to be done.”

“Ladies, you are free to remain in the castle as our guests,” said the other. “But your friends need to leave. Landon, you will return to your quarters. And Captain,” she turned her full attention back to Davenport, “You may collect your miscreant, and you and your people may leave.” 

And with that dismissal, both queens turned on heel and made their way back towards the castle. Davenport followed their lead, wondering what on Tusun Barry had been getting up to, and the others trailed behind him. He heard Lup and Taako speak to each other briefly, and Lup said, “We’ll have a sleepover on the Starblaster real soon, dude, okay? Gimme a few days to iron this out and I’ll come visit, natch.” Followed by some displeased grumbling. 

Inside, they were shown directly to a sheepish Barry Bluejeans and then directly to the door. As they went, Davenport exchanged a glance with Merle, who shook his head. Neither of these were the guards who had attacked Taako earlier. 

“Same uniform, though,” Merle informed him, once they were well outside and beyond an ear’s reach. “That’s definitely the same punks.”

“It hadn’t seemed right to ask earlier,” Davenport said with a sigh. “I want to gather a bit more information before we go throwing accusations.” 

Taako was obviously still displeased about their entire situation. He grumbled, “They  _ attacked _ me. They  _ deserve _ some accusations. No mercy for kidnappers, homie.” In response to that, Magnus ruffled his hair. Taako batted his hand away and snapped his teeth, like he might try and bite him. 

Davenport turned to Barry and asked, “Did you find anything worthwhile in the castle?”

Barry’s reply came slowly, his brow pinched in thought and eyes lost off in middle distance. “Maybe…” he said. “We’ll discuss later.” He slid his eyes to Davenport, who responded with a nod. 

“Hey!” Taako piped up, rather suddenly. He skipped ahead a bit, enough to look at Merle’s face close up-- Merle eyed him suspiciously-- and said, “Why is Merle the only old person here?” 

Magnus answered, “That’s not true. Barry’s, like,  _ well _ into middle age, right?” 

“Rude.”

“No, no, I mean like  _ old,” _ Taako emphasized.

This time it was Merle’s turn to say, “ _ Rude _ !”

“Lookat all the people in the crowd,” Taako said, using Merle’s shoulders as leverage to hop up a bit and get a better look around. The rest of the crew paused, clumping together to avoid getting jostled apart by the surrounding traffic, and glanced around at the marketplace. “They’re all like… young, right? They don’t have wrinkles or silvery beards or whatever.”

“Well excuse me, we can’t all be eternal fountains of youth like you fancy pants elves,” Merle complained while everyone else surveyed the crowd around them and Taako stuck his tongue out at their cleric.

“Huh,” Magnus said, “You’re right. It’s like the whole place has been hit with some kinda de-aging spell or something.” 

Barry followed that train of thought, carrying on the conversation, and Davenport noticed as Taako suddenly stopped bouncing. 

“They don’t have that kind of magic here. Lu and I searched the archives up and down earlier this cycle, the best they have is illusion magic.”

He grimaced a little, blinked a few times.

“If they don’t have that kinda magic, then what happened to Taako?”

Shook his head like there was water in his ears. 

“ _ Still _ . The manpower it would take to broadcast a spell  _ that _ powerful to the entire population is unheard of. The old people are probably just inside or something. You think they want to be shoved around in all of this.”

“I sure don’t,” Merle chimed in. 

Taako winced again, reached up and touched his head, swayed a little. Davenport nudged past Barry to approach, about to ask him what was the matter and ready to catch him if this was another red-ghost fainting spell. 

“Oh, come  _ on,  _ Barry! Think like a scientist. Isn’t it kinda  _ weird _ that not a  _ single person _ in the  _ entire city _ seems to be over fifty?” 

As if being struck by some sort of unseen force, Taako jolted. He let out a little yelp-- an  _ “ow!” _ \-- and clutched at his ears, folding them in and pressing them to his head. Davenport lurched forward, taking his arm to steady him, and Taako doubled over. 

“What?” Magnus asked, “What’s wrong?” 

Merle touched his shoulder, mumbling a healing spell while Barry went through the motions of detecting magic, and Taako crumpled further. He dropped to his knees, curling up with his fingers clutching his head, a quiet stream of “ _ ow, ow, ow, stoppit, it’s too loud _ ,” coming out of his lips. Merle looked at Davenport and shrugged helplessly. 

“Let’s get him back to the Starblaster,” Davenport said. 

Barry reached down and scooped Taako up off the ground, and Magnus pushed a path for them through the crowd. Davenport and Merle hurried after them, keeping a firm grip on Barry’s robe so that they wouldn’t get misplaced again. They hurried their way through the city, down a side street, and finally towards the edge of town and into the woods, and it was only then-- after nearly ten minutes of rushing and a good ways out of the city-- that Taako lost his grip of his ears and unwound, boneless in Barry’s arms. 

Now that there wasn’t anything they needed to plow through, Magnus took Taako from an exhausted-looking Barry and propped him up against his hip. Taako’s head lulled against his shoulder, out cold, as they made their hike through the woods and back to the ship. 

“He’s still breathing, isn’t he?” Merle asked, and Magnus nodded. 

“Yeah, we’re all good.”

“How ‘bout you, Barry? You about to keel over on me?” 

“Fuck you,” Barry responded, still breathless. “It’s been a long-ass day.” 

“Big day for little elves,” Magnus agreed. “What  _ was _ that? He doesn’t look any younger, does he?”

“Was it a psychic attack?” Davenport wondered. “Maybe whoever sent that guard earlier….”

Barry shook his head. “They still don’t have that kind of magic on this plane. It’s not that advanced. Unless there’s some whole secret realm of magic we don’t know about, some sick bastards that nobody talks about sapping people’s ages and using psychic warfare…. I don’t know, okay?” 

Taako whimpered in his sleep, and Magnus grimaced, pressed a kiss to the side of his head. Davenport would have liked to see Taako respond to that while conscious. 

“We need to rest. We’ll get back, decompress, and figure this out on the Starblaster.”

“Hopefully…” Barry grumbled, and they set off again on their path through the woods.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “How old do you think you are now?” Merle asked, and Taako wrinkled his nose up. That was a silly question. 
> 
> “I dunno,” he said. “Not as old as you.” 
> 
> \---
> 
> near climactic chapter, a lot of stuff is about to go down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For reference, starting after the first -line- Taako is approximately seven

When Taako woke, he was back on the Starblaster. He came to with a jolt and a gasp, jerking up and glancing around, trying to get his bearings. His dreams had been… well now he couldn’t remember them, but they’d been weird. Bad. It made his stomach hurt. He grabbed one of the blankets wrapped around him and tugged it tighter. 

Someone had made him a nest on the common room sofa. The lights were down low, and the room was alive with other people’s snores. It was kinda stuffy, and the Starblaster was swaying nearly imperceptibly where it floated in the air. 

It felt like sleeping on the long caravan ride to their auntie’s house.

Taako tucked the blanket under his chin and kicked the rest of them away. On the other end of the long, stretching sofa was Davenport-- asleep against the arm of the couch with his cap over his eyes. Barry was on the recliner chair next to him, curled up on it. His glasses were half falling off. Magnus was sleeping, face down, on the floor. He was half under the coffee table. 

“Well look who’s alive,” a gruff voice whispered as an opening door flooded the room with a bit of light. Merle stepped inside, and he crossed the room with a mug of something warm and spicy smelling that he pressed into Taako’s hands. Taako let him fuss, feeling his forehead with the back of his hand and lightly pressing under Taako’s jaw with his thumbs. He shook him off after a few moments when it started to get annoying, and Merle retreated, sitting back on the coffee table a few feet away. 

“How are you feeling, then?” Merle asked him. “Ears okay?” 

Taako tested them out, wiggling one and then the other. “Guess so,” he reported. 

“You wanna tell me a little about what happened earlier?” he pressed on, and Taako wasn’t sure why he wasn’t put-off by it, but he found he didn’t mind. “Was it a headache? Did you hear any weird voices talking to you? Feel any kind-a rooting around?” 

Those were weird questions. Taako raised an eyebrow, sipped his tea. He said, “Head hurt,” and then, “I dunno. There aren’t any ghosts in my head, if that’s what you’re asking. I’m not crazy.” 

“Wasn’t trying to say that you were.” Merle was being too nice to him. Normally Merle couldn’t  _ stand  _ him. Taako was a little suspicious. He sniffed his tea, tried to figure out the ingredients. “Just a headache?” 

It smelled… flowery. “There was a loud noise. That, like, high pitched ringing noise, remember?” 

Merle must have noticed his sniffing, because instead of answering he said, “It’s lavender, and a spoon of honey. Good for calming down emotions and getting rid of bugs, y’know, in case you have a brain parasite.” 

Taako spat his tea back into the mug. “A  _ what!?” _ Merle started cackling. 

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding, there’s nothing in your brain. Probably.” 

“The tea doesn’t calm emotions if you rile him up while he’s drinking it,” Barry croaked from across the room, where he was rolling stiffly out of the recliner and walking over to join them. There was plenty of space between Taako and Davenport, and that’s where Barry plopped down. He said, “Tell me more about the noise you heard.” 

“How did you guys not hear it?” Taako asked. “It was so  _ loud _ , thought my whole head was gonna split right down the middle.” He sipped the tea, and it bit a little. He wrinkled his nose up. 

“Is there booze in this?”

Merle grinned, sly. “A splash.”

“Okay,” Barry said, taking the mug out of Taako’s hands and setting it out of reach on the coffee table. Taako glared at him. “A really loud noise,” Barry refocused. “You said a… ringing noise? Sorry, I was still half-asleep.” 

“Good thing you’re not a rogue, kid. Your investigation skills are subpar.” 

Barry didn’t argue with that. 

“Yeah, like a….” Taako thought about it, couldn’t describe it, and instead decided to replicate it--”EEEeeeeeeeeee.”

Magnus jolted awake, hitting his knee on the coffee table and flopping back down with a groan. “Ugh,” he said. “What’are y’doing?”

“Elf boy alarm clock,” Merle said. 

Barry nodded and stared off into space for a moment, thinking. “Okay,” he finally said. He stood up. “Cool. That’s… let me think about it for a minute. I’ll be in the lab.”

He turned and left, grabbing his robe where it had been left on the chair when he’d woken up. Magnus rubbed at his eyes and took a second attempt at sitting up, meanwhile Davenport roused and picked up the mug off the coffee table.

“Coffee?” he asked, voice heavy with sleep. Taako wondered what happened to these guys to make them all so tired. 

He lied, “Yeah.”

Davenport took a big swig of it, then immediately choked and sputtered, spitting it back into the mug. “Agh!” he complained. “Fantasy Jesus Christ, Merle, is that  _ brandy _ !?”

Taako stifled a laugh behind two hands pressed to his mouth and watched Davenport take the mug to the kitchen to toss its concoction in the sink. “Hey!” Merle complained, chasing after him. “I put a lotta time into that!” 

Despite the adult members of the crew seeming entirely worn out, Taako felt close to restless. He kicked his blankets off the rest of the way and crawled carefully out of them and off of the couch. “You should sleep up there,” he said to Magnus, nudging him with his toe. “Never sleep on the floor if you don’t have to, that’s what Aunt Junip always said.” 

Magnus grumbled something in response, and Taako was… pretty sure he started to get up, but he couldn’t be certain. Halfway through his sentence, he’d felt the familiar sickening sensation of the room starting to spin around him, his vision starting to blur and darken, his head feeling staticky while everything went black. 

* * *

  
  


Taako woke up, and this time he was on the floor. His head was pillowed on something… pillowed on Magnus, who had Taako’s head cradled in his lap and was doing something to his hair. Taako felt sweaty. He still felt dizzy. He groaned. 

He sat up, and there was Barry, staring slack-jawed at a glowing red mason jar he had held in his palms. “Whazzat?” Taako asked him. He sat up, and his head swam, and suddenly Merle was there touching his face and studying his eyes. 

“How old do you think you are now?” Merle asked, and Taako wrinkled his nose up. That was a silly question. 

“I dunno,” he said. “Not as old as you.” 

“Civil language please,” Davenport said. He’d climbed onto the coffee table to take a closer look at the weird thing Barry was holding, and he said it like it was a habit. He’d definitely said it before, Taako thought, but while he remembered everything that had happened since what he mentally referred to as “the kidnapping” -- but not out loud, because it made Magnus look guilty-- it was like looking at something upside down and underwater. Like a dream you were starting to wake up out of, or a fairy tale you didn’t quite remember anymore. 

The point of it was, Taako had no idea what “civil” meant, and he said so, and Davenport turned to look at him with a really curious look on his face. Barry turned and carried the jar out of the room, too wrapped up in it to notice anything else. 

Magnus said, “Huh…. Didn’t know it worked that way.” 

“I mean,” Davenport responded. “We  _ kind of _ had an idea.” 

Taako had  _ no _ idea what they were talking about, but he was really curious about Barry’s weird jar. He clambered back to his feet, feeling a little whoozy but alright otherwise. Then he took one step forward, tripped, and fell flat on his face. 

“Ah shit,” Magnus said, scooping him back up off the ground and setting him down on his feet. “Looks like those clothes are officially too big on you, little man.” 

They were. He’d been rolling up sleeves and pantlegs for weeks now, making things fit him when they wouldn’t otherwise, but now the sleeves flopped uselessly over his hands and the pants felt like they were falling off of him.

Magnus came and crouched down in front of him, and he said, “Here. Piggy back ride to the infirmary, then we’ll figure out how little you are.” 

“I’m not little,” Taako argued, and even though Magnus was  _ tall _ and a ride sounded  _ fun _ he did have a bit of pride. He wasn’t going to be carried. He shoved at Magnus’s shoulder and hiked his pants back up before carefully stomping past. 

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


It was no strange thing for Lup to visit Landon in the middle of the night. Usually she toted Lucretia along with her, and the three of them made s’mores in his fancy bedroom fireplace and swapped stories. Once, they’d played a round of dress-up in his extensive royal closet, which seemed to be filled with more clothing than one person could accumulate in a lifespan.

When Lucretia had pointed that out to him, he’d looked surprised and said, “ _ Do you think so? I never considered that, _ ” and a strange tight-lipped smile overtook his expressions for the rest of the night. 

But as it stood, Lup was done ignoring weird shit like that. A few messages from Barry had written themselves out in the sending notebook they’d started keeping-- after they realized their comms were haywire and Lucretia set Taako up with his notebook-- and she needed  _ answers _ . It was nearing midnight, but she didn’t care. She snuck quickly and silently through the castle hallways until she found his door, knocked three times, and slipped inside. 

He smiled when he saw her, starting to stand from his desk chair and bow in the fancy-pants way he always greeted her, but he hesitated when he caught her expression and the way her arms were crossed tightly over her chest. He straightened up again, folded his hands politely in front of him. 

He asked, “Is something the matter?” 

She said, “I think so,” and realized a bit too late that she should have planned out the questions she was going to ask. Lucretia had told her not to rush into it, but she hadn’t listened. She  _ liked _ rushing into it. It felt like getting things done. She couldn’t stand sitting around. She’d done  _ nothing  _ all year besides  _ sitting around _ . 

What was she supposed to ask him, though? Even the things she knew for fact sounded practically deranged. Her brother was a child, and he definitely wasn’t supposed to be. There was a weird age-zapping inhuman wizard lurking through the streets that  _ nobody _ seemed to know anything about. There was a hallway full of portraits of the planet’s royalty, who appear unaged and untouched regardless of how old the paintings themselves seem. Lup got weird headaches from sounds  _ nobody else heard, _ except for, apparently, Taako. Was that an elf thing? How could there be  _ elf things _ in a world without elves?

The oligarchs refused to talk about  _ anything _ of substance, the archives held absolutely no texts on history. As far as Lup could tell, this place didn’t  _ have _ history.

Oh, and as Barry had mentioned in his notes-- Taako had pointed out that there didn’t seem to be any actual  _ old people _ anywhere, immediately before the headaches started. 

Lup wanted nothing more than to shake Landon by the shoulders and demand he explain  _ exactly _ what was going on and tell her  _ exactly _ how to fix it. He was lying. He’d been lying carefully, quietly, this entire time, and Lup had forgiven it. Thought she could take the things he wasn’t telling her and put those puzzle pieces together herself. She was smart, damn it.

“Lup…?” Landon said, creeping every so gently forward like he was afraid she might take a swing at him. “Are you okay? Here, have a seat, okay? Let me get you some water.” 

He reached for her arm, and she stepped back, pasting on her own tight-lipped smile. She said, “I’m gonna ask you a question, and I need an honest answer. The truth, capische?” 

Something akin to panic flashed behind his eyes and his expression crinkled a bit in uneasiness. “I…” 

“Please,” she said. “I know you’ve been lying to me, and listen, I get it, okay? But right now I need just a few seconds of honesty. Just a few. Can you do that for me?” He frowned, swallowed hard, and then nodded.

Lup nodded back, tried to pick to the root of the mystery. She said, “There’s magic here that you all haven’t told us about. Magic you’re not allowed to talk about, right?” 

And there it was. That damned, annoying, terribly ringing starting up at the base of her skull, like a warning. She ignored it. Landon closed his eyes and gave a tiny, barely perceptible nod. 

Alright. Lup could work with that. “Are you able to do this magic? Or, I guess, any of the oligarchs? The council?”

A shake of the head this time, with his eyes squeezed a bit tighter. The ringing got louder. Lup chased her thoughts around it. 

“What about the arc-mages? Is it  _ anyone _ like that?” 

Another headshake, a little bit bigger. The noise was starting to hurt, piercing through one ear and out the other. 

“Do you know whoever is doing it?” she asked, and when his eyes blinked back open there was some sort of desperation there. He stared at her, near tears, and she stared back, dizzy from the headache, and he nodded. 

“I’ve never met them,” he said. “I don’t  _ know _ them, but I know about them.” His voice was a whisper, like he was scared someone was listening. Lup could hardly hear him over the ringing. She thought back through all of her clues and settled on a final question. 

“Last one,” she said. “I promise, babe. You said you were, what? Twenty-four years old, right?” He nodded. The ringing was almost deafening. “You’ve been alive a lot longer than that, haven’t you?” 

He let out a shuddery breath, broke eye contact, and closed his eyes again. He said, “Yeah,” in a heavy exhale, like he’d been holding it for a while. He said, “Yeah, a whole lot longer than twenty-four years.” 

A tear rolled down his cheek. Lup could feel a few puzzle pieces start to fall into place.

And despite the headache leaving her near blind, making every blink feel like a jab to the skull, despite the nausea that churned in her stomach and the way the headache made her limbs feel like static, she hurried forward, grabbed the prince’s shoulders, and hugged him. 

“Thank you,” she said, even though she couldn’t hear her own voice. She smacked a kiss to his cheek and pushed away, hurrying back towards the door and out of the room. “I gotta go. We didn’t talk, you hear me? Not a word.” 

He said something, but it was lost to the screaming. Lup closed his door behind him, and no sooner than it shut, she took off sprinting down the hallway. Lucretia was still in their quarters when she got there, dizzy and sick and out of breath. She slammed into the room and Lucretia startled, dropping the pens she’d been holding. There were notebooks spread out on the desk in front of her. She jumped to her feet and hurried over to her. 

“Headache again?” Lucretia asked, and she was obviously trying to take Lup’s arm and help her sit, but Lup had more important things to do. She fell to her knees in front of her chest and started digging through it, haphazardly tossing things out of the way until she pulled the sending notebook from its hiding place and slammed it open on the carpeted floor.

“What are you doing?” Lucretia asked. “Did the prince tell you anything?” 

Lup said reached up and rubbed at the base of her skull as she scribbled out a frantic message on the sending page to Barry. A location to meet and a note of urgency. They really needed to talk. 

“I think I know what’s going on,” Lup told her, slumping back against the side of the bed and closing her eyes against the throbbing headache. “I need to talk to Barry. He… I need his brain on this puzzle.”

Lucretia nodded, and while Lup caught her breath she felt Lucretia’s hands gathering her hair off of her neck and pulling it back, twisting it into something more manageable until a heavy braid dropped onto Lup’s shoulder. A few minutes of silence, and the ringing started to fade away. The headache throbbed dully, a remnant of the original that didn’t make her want to dig her fingers into her ears and scrape something out of them. 

As soon as she could open her eyes without pain and the dizziness subsided nearly entirely, she was back on her feet and grabbing her cloak off the coat rack. “Wait,” Lucretia yelped, jumping up. “You’re going  _ now _ ?” 

Lup tied her cloak around her and tucked her wand into her waistband. She pulled the hood up over her head and tugged her boots on. “He’ll be waiting for me,” she said, tying the laces tight and double knotting. “I fill you in as soon as I get back, I  _ promise _ .” 

Lucretia frowned, crossed her arms. She said, “You’re running off in the middle of the night.  _ Again _ . And I’m staying here?  _ Again _ ?” 

She frowned harder when Lup crossed the room and took her by the shoulders. She jostled her gently. “I need you to create an illusion for me. An illusion  _ of me _ , if you could. Make it look like I haven’t left, I don’t know if we can trust Landon enough for someone not to come looking. Or maybe the walls have ears. Eyes. I’m not sure yet, but I need you here, okay?” 

“You’re the worst,” Lucretia complained, which meant  _ yes. _ Lup beamed, shook her around again joyfully. “Yeah, yeah, just go. I’ve got you covered. But if I solve this by myself while the science buddies are having a secret nighttime meeting in the woods, you owe me fifteen dollars.” 

“The bet is on,” Lup told her, tearing herself away and taking off out the door. “I’ll be back soon! You’re the best, Creesh.” 

“Damn right I am,” Lucretia agreed, while Lup slipped out the door. Barry had written her back nearly instantly. He was already on his way. She took off in a run. 

  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  


Barry didn’t like the dark. He wasn’t  _ afraid  _ of the dark ( yes he was )because he was a full grown man, and a  _ wizard _ , and a  _ necromancer _ . He was the leading expert on the Light of Creation back on Tusun, head of his department, and a salaried post-doctoral researcher. He wasn’t  _ afraid _ . 

It was just that the dark was, well,  _ dark _ . And listen, he didn’t have the best eyesight anyways, and it was incredibly easy to trip over things when you were walking through the woods in the  _ dark _ . And sure, they’d figured out pretty quickly that there wasn’t actually any fauna on this plane besides the humans who inhabited it, but centuries of evolutionary instincts and  _ several _ decades actually living as a person had left Barry with a healthy fear that maybe, in a pitch black forest in the middle of the night when nobody knew where you were, there might be a bear lurking somewhere. And it might try to eat you. And you might  _ die. _

Again. 

Barry didn’t like the dark, but the adrenaline slamming through his veins kept him going. It had been an exciting couple of days. Taako had nearly gotten kidnapped. Barry had gotten arrested by the royal guard-- and while he was in there  _ getting arrested _ , he’d managed to do some pretty thorough sweeps of the main hallways and a few of the private ones. The wavelengths he’d gotten from there were  _ very _ similar to the ones that came off of Taako right after a shrinking incident, and they were damn near fuckin’ identical to the ones coming out of the jar. 

The jar was exciting. He really hadn’t thought it would work-- had been running on empty because, oh yeah, besides getting  _ kidnapped _ Taako had also just plain passed out. Freaked out and passed out in the middle of town. From a  _ headache _ . A headache that sounded a hell of a lot like the ones Lup described to him. 

Anyways, focus, Barry. He had a jar, containing part of the red spectre that leapt out of Taako when he got shrunk down, and the energy signals on the spectre matched the ones he’d picked up in the castle, which meant that beyond a shadow of a doubt they had something to do with this. 

He didn’t know exactly  _ how _ they were responsible, but that wasn’t important yet. These oligarchs had seemed crooked from the moment Barry met them, and he was so,  _ so _ proud that his intuition had been  _ right. _

Sometimes his intuition was just anxiety, so it was hard to ever be sure. But nah, this time he had it. Those slimy bastards were going down just as soon as Barry figured out  _ how _ they were doing whatever they were doing, and if Lup’s note meant what Barry thought it meant, they might be getting quickly closer to the “how.” 

They were meeting on the edge of the city, about half a mile into the woods next to the ancient lumpy tree that looked like a terrible face. Barry got there first, and he stood uneasily next to the thing while doing his best to keep his eyes peeled on the darkness surrounding him. The noise of something making its way through the woods-- breaking twigs, rustling leaves,  _ breathing _ \-- scared the bejeesus out of him, but when Lup emerged out of the shadows, he let out a sigh of relief and made himself loosen his grip on his wand. 

She stopped in front of him, looked him over, and bit back a smile. “You’re so cool, Bluejeans.” 

He rolled his eyes. “We aren’t having a secret midnight forest meeting so you can make fun of me,” he said, and Lup smiled full-out.

“How do you know?” she teased him, and in order to get this meeting started he huffed and reached into his deepest robe pocket. He gingerly revealed a glowing red jar, which lit Lup’s face up and accentuated the shadows as she gaped at it. “Oh wow,” she said. “Ghost fumes.” 

She took it from his hands and held it up, studying it from all angles. She pulled her wand out, used it to cast some quick detection, and Barry watched the sigils and energy signatures dance gently through the air. “Time…” she read, nudging a glowing symbol out of the way with the wand. “Rejuvenation? And… I’m sorry, this one looks like ‘feeding’?” 

Barry shrugged a little helplessly. “Some of the translations are… foggy. I don’t really know what it means yet, but I can tell you this.” And he told her what he’d discovered with the castle, traced the waves of hazy glowing aura around the jar with his finger and described how they matched the exact ones he’d seen in the castle earlier that day. She nodded, agreeing that it was a match. She’d spent a good portion of the year doing the same subtle investigating. 

She teased him that she’d managed to do it all without getting herself caught and arrested, and he complained about the fairness of that statement until he noticed her wince. He stopped mid-sentence and asked, “Are you okay?” 

“Headache again,” she said. “That’s two tonight. I’m getting a little sick of this shiz, bubeleh.” 

Barry said, “Let me try something… may I?” At her nod, he placed his palm against her forehead and tried the quick healing spell Merle had taught him. It was a bastardization of the original, since Barry didn’t exactly have a source of divine energy to draw from. But Pan was a pretty generous god, and with the correct incantation Barry could get some version of the same energy from the universe instead. It wasn’t powerful, but it was reliable.

It had no effect on Lup. “I’m fine,” she said, waving him off. “It’ll go away on it’s own, and I’ll sleep it off. No biggie.”

After watching Taako freak out earlier, Barry wasn’t so sure. There was something unsettling about holding a person in your arms when they lose consciousness, especially someone that  _ small _ . It made him feel a little sick thinking about it, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it all when Lup said, “I think I have the answer to all our problems.” 

She told him about the conversation she’d had with the prince earlier, about all the things she’d discovered and that he’d been hiding, and as she spoke Barry started to put together the full picture. 

There was a chamber in the castle showing portraits of the oligarchs, some of them fairly recent and some of them old enough for the paint to begin to fracture. In every picture, they looked exactly the same. They were stealing time from other people to stay young-- eternally young.  _ That’s why _ there weren’t any elderly people out in public. There weren’t any at all. That’s why Taako had gotten time-zapped. Someone from the council had to be the ‘Big n’Spooky’ Magnus had been talking about, and that person had found a way to convert years stolen from someone else into youth for themselves. Time. Rejuvenation.  _ Feeding _ . 

When Taako shrunk down and the spectre came out of him, they were siphoning some of his life force away. Maybe they were doing it to other people. Maybe Taako was just an unlucky victim. An elf had a big vast enough lifespan to feed a pretty big appetite, Barry figured, as gruesome as that was.

Prince Landon knew exactly what was going on, but he was sworn to silence on it. This system they had in place stuck him permanently under the thumb of his mothers. If he couldn’t talk about it, he probably wasn’t really involved in it. He wasn’t the magical one. There had to be a small number of people who had it figured out, and they were able to spread it out amongst the whole ruling class.  _ That’s why _ it was a “magicless” plane. All the magic was kept to the council, to keep them powerful. All of their magic was kept secret. That’s why it wasn’t in the libraries. What magic the arc-mages had was either a rouse to throw off people investigating or a bribe to keep them quiet. 

The more they talked, the more Barry’s thoughts soared through his head, and as everything started to fall together properly he almost didn’t notice Lup until it was too late. She leaned back heavily against their ugly tree, and Barry paused his rant, looking her over with concern. 

She groaned, doubling over, and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. “It’s escalating,” she said, voice huffed out in ragged breaths, and Barry helped ease her down to sit on the ground. She went, clumsy, dropping heavily onto the ground, and when he sat in front of her, cross-legged, she leaned forward and dropped her head onto his shoulder. 

“Think we got it, then?” she asked, and there was a smile in her voice. Barry wrapped his arms around her.

“We should get you back to the ship,” he said. Lup laughed, voice a little harsh from the pain.

She said, “I’m not a little kid. You don’t have to worry about me beefing it on the walk home.” He unwound her braid and ran his fingers through her hair, scratching gently at the base of her skull. She sighed. After seventeen years at this, they weren’t exactly strangers at comforting each other. 

Barry asked, “So what do we do now? Walk up to the council and demand justice? Figure out their spell and siphon the life force out of them and back into Taako?” 

Lup hissed in a pained breath through her teeth and took a moment before answering. “As… as much as I love going in guns blazing, I’m not sure that’s the right move on this one.” 

“Mark the day.”

“I’ll ask Lucy to write it down.” 

Barry said, “I’m not sure how to find more proof on this, I--” and he stopped, suddenly, when a sound nearby sent a spike of fear straight through him. “Did you hear that?” he asked, voice a whisper.

“I can hardly hear anything, babe, I’m dying here,” she responded at a normal speaking volume, maybe even a little louder. Barry cringed, heard a noise that was  _ definitely _ a twig snapping, and jerked his head in that direction. 

“Someone’s here,” he whispered, and maybe he was clutching her a little bit harder than he had been before. 

She sighed at him. “I swear to Pan, Barry, you’re the biggest baby about this stuff,” she complained, and he couldn’t stop her from pushing out of his lap and hauling herself clumily to her feet. He dragged himself up to help her when she stumbled, but she caught herself and held a hand out, holding him off. “I’m good,” she said, drawing her wand. “Scan the perimeter.” 

“Okay,” he said, throat dry and heart hammering. He drew his own wand and crept forward, squinting as hard as he could into the darkness around them. He couldn’t make out anything through the trees, and for a moment there was silence. 

Then the sound returned. A sudden crashing of  _ several bodies _ making their way hastily through the woods. The crackling ozone of magical energy. The howling of a powerful wind. His blood ran cold, and he scrambled back towards the tree they’d been occupying. 

“Lup watch out, someone’s--!” but he cut off mid-sentence, when something bright red flashed in his periphery. He screamed, and he swung around to get a better look at it. Found something tall, sickly,  _ looming _ over him at an impossible height, thin as the trees occupying the forest around them and staring into his soul with empty, black eyes. 

Somewhere far away, he heard the familiar roar of fire erupting from Lup’s wand, heard her cry out. 

He opened his mouth. There was a spell on the tip of his tongue.

And then it struck.

And Barry went down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Allegedly, when I was growing teeth, my mother did the whole "soak a wooden spoon in whiskey, freeze it, and let the kid chew on it" trick. I don't doubt this at all, because a few times when I was really anxious my aunt would make me tea with brandy and chill me the f u ck out. I'm not saying it's good parenting. I'm saying it feels like a Merle kind of choice. 
> 
> You might be thinking "ahaHA! We've solved the mystery!" But have we?? HAVE WE??? 
> 
> Lastly, guys, alarming news. I don't think this thing passes the fucking Bechdel test.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "My name is Sildar Hallwinter, and I have no idea how I got here." 
> 
> \--
> 
> Barry goes on a hike, Taako burns dinner, and Davenport has unanswered questions about parenting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're gonna keep churning these out while the inspiration is still alive.
> 
> Also I am in LOVE with our young Barry. You'll see why. Taako is approx. 7 after his last shrink down.

_ Okay _ , Barry thought to himself.  _ This is bad.  _ This was very,  _ very _ bad. It was  _ dark _ . He was in the  _ woods _ . And he had  _ no idea _ how he’d gotten there. Had he gotten shanghaied? Didn’t they usually lock you up someplace if you got shanghaied, or at least keep an eye on you? Make you work on a pirate ship or something? Had he been out drinking? Was  _ that _ what had happened? 

Barry didn’t know. He didn’t know a lot about getting shanghaied. He didn’t know a lot about a lot of things actually. All he knew was that he was in his dorm, and now he wasn’t. Instead, he was out alone in the middle of the woods in the middle of the night wearing somebody’s else’s clothes and with the worst headache he’d ever had in his whole life.

He had to be hungover then, right? He had to have gotten drunk? 

He didn’t  _ have to _ have been doing anything, Barry reminded himself. Not without proof. If he really wanted to know what was going on, he needed guesses that he could disprove. That was how science worked. 

So what did he know? 

Barry stopped for a moment to lean against a tree and catch his breath. While he was here, he might as well inventory the gear in these stranger’s pockets. They weren’t  _ his _ pockets. The pants were too big around the waist and the bright red robe wasn’t exactly his  _ style _ , it was kind of loud, and it dragged on the ground when he walked. Kept getting tangled up in brambles and branches.

His mother kept telling him that if he didn’t stop skipping meals he’d never get as tall as his father had been. Barry kept reminding her that he was a little old to worry about  _ getting taller _ , now that he was twenty, and it wasn’t like he skipped meals on purpose. Maybe he was a little lighter than he had been as a teenager, but that was, like, hormones or something, right? He didn’t have time to eat when he had to  _ study. _ The Interplanar Sciences department at the IPRE didn’t just take  _ anyone _ for their graduate programs. He had to  _ earn it _ . 

And he wasn’t going to earn it if he was going insane.

He might have been going insane. He’d taken psychology. He knew… a few things. He knew that only insane people woke up in the middle of the woods without any idea how they’d gotten there. He should have remembered  _ something _ . He really did not remember getting drunk. 

His pockets had a number of things-- no wonder the stupid robe was so heavy. There were a lot of spell components, some of which Barry recognized instantly and knew how to use (he sorted those into his left pocket, for easy access), and some of which he only knew from studying. He wasn’t upper level yet, but he  _ had _ memorized every known spell and their necessary physical components for his Schools of Magicks seminar last semester. Some of the things this guy had in his pockets were, as far as Barry could tell, pretty advanced shit. Some of it was a little dark. The vial of blood. The bag of-- he dabbed a finger into the powder, licked it,  _ eugh _ \-- yep, bone dust. The tiny silver cage… was that a soul cage? 

He yelped, dropped it, and leapt away from it. 

He did  _ not _ need to get involved with necromancy. He  _ knew _ what happened to people who got involved with necromancy. They all go  _ weird _ , and they had that perpetual undead scent that never really washed off of them, and they were really creepy about bones. And road kill. And the moon. Besides, how would he even begin to explain himself to his mother. 

“ _ Yeah, Ma, I know I’ve put in three years now in the physics program and been working on that double-major in divination and evocation, but I really think it’s time to switch gears and start over in Ghost Town.” _

Yeah. Not a chance. 

And listen. Maybe, okay,  _ maybe _ Barry secretly thought that it was all really super cool. But that was the  _ zombies _ and the  _ skeletons _ and the blood rituals, NOT the soul cages. What if there was a soul in it? What if he was just carrying around a person in his pocket? No thank you, that was bad mojo. He walked a ways away, finding a new tree to lean against, and left the cage where it was. 

_ Okay _ , Barry thought to himself. He was wearing a necromancer’s robe, he was lost in the woods, and it was  _ very _ dark. And everything looked  _ weird, _ and his head hurt.

Oh. 

He reached up and pulled his glasses off, and okay. He definitely didn’t recognize them, but when he squinted at the engraving on the arm he could make out the letters “B.J.B.” Those weren’t his initials. He was wearing someone else’s glasses. 

Great. 

He put the glasses into his pocket of ‘useless’ items, and now he couldn’t really see, but he hadn’t been able to see much anyways and the glasses had been giving him a headache from trying too hard to focus his eyes. So this was better. Kind of. 

It was hard to tell exactly, but it looked like the trees might start to thin out a ways ahead, and that could be useful. If he could get into open space and away from the forest, maybe he would recognize something. If nothing else, maybe he could read the sky and at least figure out what time it was, or where north was, or  _ something _ . He could find a town, maybe, and ask someone for directions.

Barry shoved off of the tree and towards what looked like the thinner part of the forest. His robe tangled up on  _ something _ , and nearly sent him sprawling face first into a tree root, but he caught himself against a tree and shoved back upright. With a growl of frustration he yanked the robe around, twisted the end of it up into a tail, and tucked that into his pants. Screw it. They were too big anyways. It didn’t matter if he looked ridiculous. 

And so, half-blind, very lost, and looking a little ridiculous, Barry stomped out of the forest and towards the open night sky, hopefully on his way back to campus.

  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Magnus woke up the next morning to tiny fingers poking him in the cheek. He peeked an eye open and found Taako crouched down next to the sofa and leaning in a  _ bit _ too close to stare at him. His eyes were… pretty creepy like this. With the enlarged pupils and nearly too-thin-to-see colored bits. Magnus blinked a few times, making sure that he was truly awake, and then lugged himself into an upright position. Taako jumped up and scrambled onto the couch next to him, pulling his knees to his chest and holding out a little piece of paper. 

“Found a note,” he said. 

Magnus yawned, scrubbed at his eyes, and wondered why he was lucky enough to be chosen for the wakeup call. He yawned again and said, “Wha’s say?” through the fist over his mouth. 

“I dunno,” Taako told him. “Can’t read.” 

Magnus froze, mid-yawn, and turned to look at him. “What?” he asked. “Since when?” 

Taako shrugged, made another ‘I dunno’ noise, and when Magnus didn’t say anything he frowned and looked at the paper he was holding. “That’s a double-u,” he said, pointing at a letter on the page. 

Magnus leaned over to glance at it. “No it’s not,” he responded. “It says, ‘Went to talk to Lup. Be back. Barry.’” 

“There’s a double-u in ‘went’!” Taako complained. “...Probably. That’s totally a double-u.”

Magnus sighed and took the note to point it out. “ _ That’s _ a double-u,” he said, “You pointed at the B.”

Taako’s response was to cross his arms over his chest and sulk at him, and Magnus felt more and more tired by the second. “It  _ looks _ like a sideways double-u, so it’s basically the same thing, probably.” 

“Alright, fine. You win, little man,” Magnus said, and collapsed back against the couch cushions with his eyes closed. His sleep schedule was whack, with all the adventures and the night-time age transformations and sleeping on the floor.

He felt something poke at his cheek again, and Taako asked, “D’ya want coffee? It’s still hot.” 

Taako had been talking with a bit of a lisp ever since his third or fourth transformation, when he’d actually started to really shrink down. Now, though, it was prominent, turning every ‘s’ sound into a heavy ‘th.’ It was  _ adorable _ , and when Taako turned back into a full-grown person Magnus planned to tease him  _ endlessly _ about it. 

“You can make coffee but you can’t read?” Magnus ribbed. “Who raised you?” 

He wasn’t expecting Taako to take him seriously, or for him to answer with any kind of honesty. “Grampa says we have to be useful,” he reported, and Magnus suddenly felt very,  _ very _ sad. 

“Okay,” he said, pushing himself off of the couch and standing. “I’ll take some coffee. Thank you.” 

“Dope!” Taako leapt over the arm of the sofa and took off into the kitchen. Magnus followed after him, a bit slower. The kid was making him feel  _ old. _

He got a good look at what Taako was wearing for the first time as the kid dragged a stool across the kitchen and climbed up to grab the coffee pot off of the stovetop. He had to use both hands, struggling a little bit under the weight of it, but he somehow managed to pour a hearty mug full without any sort of incident. 

When Davenport joined them in the kitchen a moment later, Taako grinned at him and grabbed a second mug to start pouring. It was one of the large mugs, the kind Merle liked to use-- dwarven constitution was  _ no _ joke when it came to substances, caffeine or otherwise-- and Davenport politely didn’t say anything. 

“Is he wearing your pajama pants?” Magnus asked in a stage whisper, leaning in close to Davenport, who’s tail flicked out to whack him in the side of the leg. Magnus snickered. 

“Don’t tease him,” Davenport whispered back, then rushed over with a, “Here, let me help you--” as Taako tried to carry both mugs to the table at once. “Big cups, two hands.” 

“Don’t patron me,” Taako said. “I’m not a  _ baby _ .”

“Yeah, Cap’n Warlock, don’t patron the kid.” Magnus elbowed Davenport in the side, sloshed a bit of his coffee onto the table. “Oops… Hey, T-man, show him the note you found.” 

“Oh yeah!” Taako cheered, and he climbed up onto a kitchen chair and slapped the note down onto the table. “Went to talk to Lup. Be back. Barry.” he parroted, and Davenport glanced at the note while sipping at his coffee. 

Davenport nodded. “Hm… is he back yet?” 

“Nope.” 

“You want to keep an eye out for him? There’s a spy glass up on the deck you can use, so long as you don’t drop it over the edge.” Taako’s eyes widened at the offer, face glowing a little bit, and he didn’t spare another second before hopping down from his chair and running out of the kitchen, on his way to do his new job. 

Magnus watched him go, drew some lightning bolts on the kitchen table with the coffee he’d spilled. He said, “So… this is weird, right? I know it’s been weird, but it seems weirder. He’s so… little, now.” 

Davenport nodded solemnly. “It is definitely weird.” 

“He doesn’t even  _ sound  _ like himself anymore….” 

“I’d say it’s a step up from being emotionally traumatized and trying to kick your ass constantly,” Davenport said, and that was true, at least. “I think we’ll have to be very careful about how we handle this, when all is said and done. He is still our crewmate, and will still be an adult, hopefully, at the start of the next cycle. There’s no telling what he’s going to remember from this or how he’s going to feel, so we need to take care to be considerate and respectful about this whole thing.” 

That sounded like a lot of work, and Magnus really hoped Davenport was coming up for a game plan for all of that. Then, a horrifying thought flashed through his mind and he said, “Oh my God, Dav’n’port. What if he gets young enough for diapers?”

A grave expression crossed over Davenport’s face, and he took a final sip of his coffee before sliding out of his chair and crossing the room towards the door. “I have been trying not to consider that,” he answered, and then he was gone. 

Magnus dropped his forehead against the table and laughed. 

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  


Dinner that night was scrambled eggs and slightly burnt toast, and Davenport was wondering if it was time to try offering additional help in the kitchen. He knew that Barry had tried, once, when Taako was still in his mid-twenties, and he’d gotten laughed out of the kitchen. Now, though, it only seemed polite. 

By the time dinner ended, Taako was just about falling asleep at the table, and Magnus waved off his offer to help with the dishes. He carried them all in one massive trip back into the kitchen and started going to town in the sink. 

It was amazing, in Davenport’s opinion, that it took Taako turning into a small child to make Magnus responsible. 

“You gonna take a bath tonight?” Merle asked, and Taako picked his head up to raise an unimpressed eyebrow. 

“No.” 

“You should…” Merle said it sing-song, trying to make it enticing, but Taako just glared harder. 

“ _ No. _ ” 

Perhaps that was going to be a problem they would have to deal with as well. Davenport added it to his mental list of things to worry about. From the kitchen, Magnus yelled out, “Hey! When do you think Barry is coming back?” 

Ah yes. Another item on the list. 

“He’s okay, right?” Taako asked, and before Merle could tease him with any sort of,  _ “Aww do you miss him?” _ Davenport threw out a quick sideways elbow and nailed Merle in the ribs. 

Merle grunted. “I didn’t say anything!” 

“You were going to.” 

“Yeah, but I hadn’t yet.” 

Magnus popped back into the room. There were soap suds on his chin and water all down the front of his shirt. “He’s probably just staying with Lup.” He thought about it for a moment, then tossed a sideways glance at Davenport. “Right…?” 

“Oh I know!” Taako said, energetic once again as he climbed down out of his chair. “I’ll write to Lup in my journal and ask her!” Quick as a flash, he was gone, running off down the hallway. 

Davenport said, “He’s always been more than capable of handling himself. If he doesn’t come back tomorrow, then we will start looking for him.” 

“Maybe he just got arrested again,” Merle offered, and Davenport couldn’t repress his sigh. 

Taako crashed back into the room with a, “Got it!” He tossed it up onto the table and clambered back into his chair, kneeling up on it so he could lean his hands on the table over the notebook. “I need someone to tell me the letters to write,” he said, uncapping his pen and flipping through his notebook until he found the piece of sending paper Lucretia had given him. It was nearly filled already with messages in different levels of illegible handwriting, all accompanied with a cursive response from Lup underneath. Together, they went through a slow and careful process of spelling out the words: “Is Barry there with you? Thanks. Love you.” with most of the letters oriented the correct way.

Taako waited, eagerly, staring down at the book, but after several minutes had passed in silence he sighed dramatically and tossed himself back in his chair. It rocked, nearly knocking over backwards. Magnus reached out and grabbed the back of it.

“Guess she’s busy,” Taako said. He stuck his pen behind his ear and kicked his feet a bit under the table, then perked back up again. “Do you guys wanna watch a movie?” 

Davenport was starting to say, “It’s getting late…” When Magnus spoke at the same time, with a much louder, enthusiastic voice. “Sure!” 

“Taako, you look pretty tired. I think it would be best if you go to sleep soon,” Davenport tried again, and Taako turned to him with a tremendous pout on his face.

He said, “But  _ Magnus _ already said  _ yes _ ,” drawing the words out into a whine and ramping up the puppy dog eyes. Davenport was left gaping, a little helpless, while a grimacing Magnus mouthed ‘ _ I’m sorry _ ’ over the table, and Merle excused himself from the room, laughing. 

“I… you’re not tired?” 

“Nope,” Taako said, already out of his seat again and heading towards the common room, grinning like he was getting away with something. Magnus glanced after him, and then back at Davenport. 

He said, “My bad…” before getting up to join him, and Davenport figured he might as well follow along. He had nothing better to do, and a movie might give him time to think about a solution to  _ that _ particular problem. 

Of the books they had brought with on the mission or accumulated along the way, they’d never thought to pick up a parenting book, and now Davenport was lamenting it.

He had to veto the first three movie options, all of which were either too violent, or too sexual, or  _ both _ , and he had to wonder about his crew’s choice of media while Taako finally pulled Fantasy Lion King out of the selection, and Davenport had no reason not to allow it. He did worry briefly that Taako wouldn’t be able to handle a film about losing a parent at this age, but despite claims of not being tired, Taako was clocked out and snoring softly long before Mufasa’s demise. 

Magnus still cried softly during it, but that was as expected as it was manageable. He was wiping his eyes on the backs of his hands when Hakuna Matata rolled around, trying to act discreet as if Davenport hadn’t watched him cry at this movie a half-dozen times before, and he asked, “Think I should carry him to bed?” 

Davenport shrugged, then nodded. “That’d be best, probably. It’ll be less disorienting when he wakes up.” 

Taako did wake up when Magnus lifted him, popping awake with a quiet gasp and worried eyes, but when Magnus whispered, “You’re okay, it’s just me, dude,” Taako blinked a few times before nodding and dropping right back into sleep as if nothing had happened.  _ That _ , at least, was a very positive change from all of this. It made Davenport worry a little less, and he was just starting to let his thought go quiet as he stared mindlessly at the movie when somebody shouting startled him into alertness again.

It wasn’t inside the ship, unless it was on deck? It sounded very far away. Davenport got up and headed towards the stairs, and he met Merle in the hallway.

“Do you  _ hear _ that?” Merle asked, as someone outside continued on hollering. 

“ _ Hey! Hey! Excuse me!? Is there anybody up there!?”  _

They climbed up the stairs and out onto the deck of the ship, and then peered over the edge. There, on the ground below, was Barry Bluejeans waving his arms and shouting. Davenport was grateful for another item crossed off of his list of things to worry about, and he headed to the bridge to call the ship down and let Barry on board. He then went to the door to greet him and let him in, and he found Merle already standing there in the doorway. 

As he approached, he heard a voice that sounded not  _ quite _ right asking, “You guys are with the IPRE, right? I saw the logo on the ship. Listen, I’m a student at the institute, and I was wondering if you could-- oh my gods.” 

Davenport stopped in the doorway next to Merle, and Barry seemed to short-circuit in front of him. 

“Oh my  _ gods _ !” Barry nearly shouted, covering his mouth with his hand and then dropping to his knees in front of Davenport, who startled back a step, surprised. That didn’t stop Barry from reaching out and taking his hand, shaking it a little too vigorously as he said, “Oh my gods, you’re Captain Drew Davenport, as in  _ the _ Captain Davenport! The youngest captain  _ ever _ . You lead the mission that looped both suns! I was in your lecture series about quantifying the effects of space-time on traceable threads of magic, and sir, that talk was so  _ inspiring _ , I’d never even considered the applicable uses of those theories before I heard you talk about them, I--” 

“Whoa, nerd alert,” Magnus said, joining the crowd in the doorway behind Davenport and holding his hand out as if waiting for one of the twins to high-five him. They would have, too, but instead after a moment Merle reached around and smacked his hand. Magnus laughed, smile splitting his face. 

Then he caught up to the situation and said, “Holy shit, is that  _ Barry _ ?” and Barry’s head snapped up, just now noticing the attention. 

He straightened up, climbing clumsily to his feet and dusting off the front of his shirt. He looked disheveled, with his robe tucked in funny and the knee of one pant leg torn. There was dirt on his nose, he wasn’t wearing his glasses, and if Davenport had to guess, he would have said he looked about two decades too young. 

  
“I forgot my manners,” he said, standing up a little straighter, smiling awkwardly. “I’m Sildar Hallwinter. My, um, my friends call me Barry. I’m sorry, I don’t remember meeting you before…” he said that last part bashfully to Magnus, then looked back down at Davenport. “I’m an undergraduate student in the physics department, and this is going to sound crazy, but I have  _ no _ idea how I got here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the big climax is either next chapter, or the one after that. get pumped Get Pumped GET PUMPED!


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taako tries to torment Barry, Davenport needs a nap, and alcohol is consumed. 
> 
> OH and we end on a cliffhanger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the people have spoken, and i feel the need to reassure you. i will not be putting Taako in diapers. that's not something I am strong enough to handle, so we're not even going to go there. 
> 
> PREVIOUSLY ON THE ADVENTURE ZONE: Taako is still little. Barry went to meet Lup for a secret nighttime meeting in the woods, and when he came back, he was twenty years old with no memories. Uh oh. Last time they were in the city, the oligarchs gave a very cryptic message and asked them all not-politely to leave. A royal guard tried to kidnap Taako, and Lup got some pretty disturbing answers to our mystery.

Barry didn’t know how he was supposed to go to sleep after this. Don’t get him wrong-- he was _dead_ tired. He’d spent all day wandering around lost in the woods and in the city and in the woods again, and then he’d spent all night having the worst conversation of his entire life. Yes, even worse than that conversation he’d had with his uncle that year at Candlenights when he was thirteen and his uncle decided that “somebody ought to tell him how a man’s world is” since his father had passed ages ago, but Barry hadn’t ever really thought about sex before that? And his older cousin had walked into the middle of it while his uncle was explaining how condoms worked, and he’d laughed so hard that Barry had gone outside and climbed on top of the garage roof to hide and didn’t realize that his whole family was looking for him until he climbed down again two hours later, after his grandmother had called the militia. Who were right there, in the living room.

Yes, even worse than that. 

Because _apparently_ Barry was old. Forty-three. He was _forty-three_ years old, and he didn’t remember _any of it_ . He was forty-three years old, and he was in space. He was on an alien planet, on the coolest spaceship he’d ever seen in his life, with one of his _idols_ , and he didn’t remember any of it. And apparently some terrifying monster force called _The Hunger_ was coming in a short while to destroy everything? And not only was Barry supposed to help fight The Hunger (with magic he _hadn’t learned yet_ and _didn’t know how to use_ ) , he was also the chief science officer on this spaceship, and he had _no_ idea how any of the science worked. 

Captain Davenport said not to worry about it. He said he’d show Barry the bond engine ( **_bond engine!?_ ** ) tomorrow, and that if Barry _really_ wanted to know he’d try and dig up a copy of Barry’s dissertation, because apparently the theory in that had helped build the bond engine in the first place. 

Captain Davenport said not to worry about it, but Barry couldn’t do anything _except_ worry about it. Allegedly, adult him had left a note on the spaceship (“Starblaster” how _fucking_ cool was that!?) saying he was going to talk to another team member of theirs, but then he’d been gone for a day and a half and he’d come back like this. Captain Davenport had said they didn’t really expect him to remember what happened, since “Taako doesn’t remember either,” but also insisted that if Barry could think of _anything_ that happened he needed to let them know. 

Barry had no idea what they were talking about. The beefy guy-- Magnus, he was friendly but also incredibly intimidating, and he didn’t look very old but something about the way he held himself suggested that he _was_ old, and Barry… didn’t have the energy to figure that out. Anyways, Magnus had kept saying the words “Big and Spooky,” and the cleric had insisted on doing some tests on him and spent a long time mumbling about the sore spot on Barry’s back. Barry had caught the words “necrotic energy,” and then Davenport had insisted they all try and get some rest, as if those words weren’t the _scariest_ thing Barry had ever heard in his entire life.

They’d shown Barry to a small room in what he assumed was the residential hall of the ship. It was just large enough for a bed, a desk, and a closet, and Barry felt a nauseating sort of comfort as he sat in it. Merle had said that he was down the hall if he needed anything, and told him not to throw up on anything important. Magnus had said that he’d probably feel better in the morning, and it was “good to have you back anyways, even if you’re, well, y’know.” And Davenport had said not to hesitate to wake him if he needed, but really, he would be just fine. There was nothing to worry about. 

The way he said it suggested that there was actually a good deal to worry about, but Barry wasn’t going to do anything stupid like be upset or ask for reassurance in front of the Captain, so he kept that opinion to himself. 

And now, hours later, he laid sprawled out on top of the covers of his own (allegedly) bunk, staring at the ceiling and trying not to hyperventilate or throw up or anything else stupid. He’d been trying to sleep for what felt like forever, but it wasn’t working. Every time he closed his eyes, it felt like the room was spinning. Any time he nodded even _close_ to sleep, a sharp spike of anxiety would shoot up his spine and toss his stomach, and he’d have to lurch back upright in bed and put his head between his knees until his hands stopped shaking. 

Rinse. Repeat. Here they were. 

The clock on the nightstand said five twenty-seven. He glared at it, groaned, and rolled himself out of bed. Screw it. If this was _really_ his room, then he had a right to explore it. It couldn’t be considered an invasion of privacy if it was his own stuff, right? Older him wouldn’t mind, right? 

He started at the desk, because it felt the safest. He could read the papers tacked up to the wall above it without really touching anything, and when he did so he found a lot of disorienting information. Some of them were notes, mathematical formulas or diagrams or scribbled bullet points. The formulas all had a second set of handwriting occupying the page, crossing out his math and filling in their own, or adding equations or notes in the margins. Barry had never been the best at math. He was studying physics for the _science_ , and he could do the math, obviously, but he’d always found it good to have a proofreader.

Other papers on the walls were in languages he didn’t understand (a few elvish, though he recognized his own sloppy handwriting), or didn’t even recognize. One was almost morse code, and another was just endlessly sprawling loops and spirals that he couldn’t imagine anyone making sense out of. 

There was magic there, too. A porthole in the wall let him look outside over the forest, and taped carefully above it was a sigil he recognized from home. A few religious symbols and a spell of protection. His mother had placed them above every window and door in his childhood home, “just in case,” and it looked like Barry had decided to do the same. Above the desk and on it was some other spellwork, a table translating spell symbols between languages and a few scratched out summoning circles. He had some concerns about the summoning circles, and he let his eyes skim quickly over them and focused instead on the photographs on the wall. 

There were some photos in black and white and in color with varying levels of clarity. There were a few graphite sketches, and one small plastic square that showed a few second clip moving on an endless loop. The moving clip showed Magnus-- the human he had met-- sitting on the couch and screaming in surprise as two elf twins came flying in from off screen and leapt on top of him. It stopped right before impact, and then started over, looping again and again and again. 

Barry took a mental tally of the individuals in the photos. There was Captain Davenport and Merle and Magnus, but there were also the elves he hadn’t met yet, and a young black human with large circular glasses, and an older human with a crooked smile and brown hair.

That must have been him, then. He stared at one photo in particular for a long time, a picture of him and Magnus standing, arms thrown around each other’s shoulders. They were both wearing the red robes Barry had woken up in, and it looked like Magnus was caught halfway to trying to lick Barry’s face, and Barry was pulling away from him with a wide, exasperated smile. 

Barry turned his eyes away from the pictures and instead found himself in the reflection of the porthole. He smiled, wide, making his eyes crinkle, and then dropped it. 

This was all so weird. 

Inside the closet was a set of drawers. He opened one to investigate, and found an array of mason jars, each labeled with a different person’s name. He hummed, picked up one at random, and quickly slammed it back into the drawer when he saw the dark red contents within. 

He slammed the drawer closed. 

Right. Necromancy. That was a _thing_ he did now, in the future.

Gods help him. 

The blood felt like a pretty satisfactory end to his exploration, so Barry carefully avoided the drawers as he dug through the closet instead, trying to find something more comfortable to wear than muddy jeans and a too-large robe. He was relieved to find underwear, socks, and a pair of sweatpants. The pants had an emblem on them that read “IPRE STAFF” in the middle of the crest, and Barry gasped happily and ran his fingers over the words for a moment before starting to get dressed. 

It felt a million times better to be in clean clothing, and he wondered briefly if he would be able to find a bathroom for a shower without disturbing anyone. Probably not in the dark, quiet ship without his glasses. 

He was sitting down on the bed again and considered what to do with himself when his bedroom door swung open. He jumped, surprised, and stood up. It was only _respectful_. He was a guest here, and these were all strangers, and you were supposed to stand when strangers entered a room. 

It wasn’t a stranger, though. Not exactly. It was a little boy. 

The little elf walked a few steps into the room before noticing Barry and freezing in place. The kid was wearing a hawaiian shirt that was obviously meant for someone much wider than he was, with a more appropriately sized IPRE sweater underneath, and a pair of flannel pajama pants. His hair was unruly, blonde, and sticking up in a multitude of directions on his head, and his eyes were _huge_. 

There were two large coffee mugs in the child’s hands, and he watched Barry with unblinking eyes and a tremor of tension in his shoulders while Barry tried to figure out what to say to him. 

Eventually, the kid snapped out of his surprise first. He said, “Who are you?” like it was an accusation.

Barry cleared his throat and said, “Oh, um… Hi there.” Should he crouch down? He felt like he was supposed to crouch down. That’s how you talked to shorter strangers, but… that was for gnomes and particularly small dwarves or kobolds. Not for children. He decided against it, and said, “My name’s Barry, what’s yours?”

There was no answer, only the splashing clatter of two coffee mugs hitting the floor and the slamming of Barry’s bedroom door as the kid took off sprinting. 

Barry stared open mouthed down at the mess, before realizing that he might have a lot of explaining to do to whoever the kid ran to, and he took off as well. He jumped over the mess on the ground and skidded out into the hallway, where he saw the small figure freeze, gasp, and then dart into a room. The door slammed behind him. 

Well shit, Barry thought, and he walked down the hall to the door. Inside he could hear two voices, and he knocked politely before the door swung open under his hand. He yelped and jumped back, surprised at the small burst of energy that bounced out of his hand. 

“Sorry!” he said, “I, uh, I wasn’t trying to cast that…”

Inside the room was Captain Davenport, and Barry immediately wanted to fuse into the floor and disappear forever. He could feel his face catch fire with embarrassment. The Captain was sitting up in bed, his hair and mustache on one side all rucked up at a ridiculous angle, and he was squinting groggily at Barry through the open door. The elfling was at his side, apparently frozen while shaking Captain Davenport’s shoulder, and he looked at Barry with a squeak and a flinch before climbing up onto Captain Davenport’s to put someone between himself and Barry.

“That’s him!” the kid yelled, pointing, and Barry felt like he was on trial for murder. 

“I’m so sorry,” Barry said, not quite sure what he was apologizing for. “I didn’t, I mean, he just--” 

“What’s going on!?” Someone slammed into Barry from behind, hitting both the door jam and Barry’s back with enough force to nearly knock him over. An arm wrapped around Barry’s middle to keep him upright, and Barry glanced over his shoulder to see the human boy, Magnus, holding Barry up against him and looking ready to fight something. Somehow, impossibly, Barry’s face burned even hotter. 

“I,” he said intelligently, “Um…”

“I thought we ungrew this whole yelling and screaming thing!” someone complained loudly from down the hallway, and the elfling stood up on the bed with his hands braced on Captain Davenport’s shoulders to holler back. 

“There was a stranger in Barry’s room!” he shouted at full volume, and then something was smacking Barry on the back of the thigh. 

“Ow,” he complained, and he looked down to see Merle, the dwarf, glaring up at him. He cracked into a grin, then he winked. Barry’s face was going to catch on fire. 

Merle said, “What are you torturing the kid for?” 

And the kid shouted, “Hit ‘em again!” 

And Captain Davenport stood up out of bed and clapped his hands together. He said, “Alright,” and everyone stopped talking. Magnus was still holding onto him, though, and when Barry shifted awkwardly, Magnus mumbled an apology and stepped back out of his space. Barry was going to die.

Captain Davenport turned to the child first, and he said, “Try and be nice please.” 

The kid’s response was an immediate and petulant, “No!” that the Captain seemed to ignore as he turned back to look at Barry. 

He said, “My apologies for such a loud morning. If you’ll remember, we mentioned another crew member who was hit with the same sort of youth spell a short while ago…” 

Oh. Right. Barry did remember that. There had just been so much to process after last night, and he hadn’t imagined someone quite this _young_ when they’d said that, and he wasn’t running on very much sleep at all. He nearly swallowed his own tongue and said, “Yeah, uh, yes sir, I remember.” 

Magnus snickered behind him. Barry thought that maybe, after this, he was going to lock himself in the bathroom and cry.

Captain Davenport’s mustache twitched a little, but he nodded and motioned to the elfling behind him before saying, “This is Taako, our transmutation specialist.” 

He was one of the twins in the pictures on Barry’s wall, him and his sister. They were older in the pictures, obviously, but Barry wasn’t very familiar with elven ages so he had no idea what kind of numbers to place on it. The elf in the pictures had a wry smile and mischievous eyes. This little elf in front of him was glaring like he half expected Barry to pull his wand out and try to hex him. 

Captain Davenport had turned to Taako then, and was explaining in a gentle voice what had happened to Barry. Taako looked dubious, and he kept glancing over the Captain’s shoulder to shoot Barry dirty looks. Barry tried desperately to think of something to say to make it better, but before he could piece anything together, a hand settled on his shoulder and Barry glanced back to see Magnus again. 

“Hey,” he said, and nodded his head down the hallway. “Coffee?” 

Coffee sounded perfect. Taako was sulking and murmuring something to Captain Davenport that was too quiet to hear. Davenport was still wearing pajama pants. Barry felt like some kind of crazy intruder. 

“Oh, gods, please,” Barry agreed, and Magnus’s laugh was bright and loud as he grabbed Barry by the crook of the elbow and dragged him off down the hall. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


The rest of the day was pretty boring, as far as their days went. Magnus took Barry to the kitchen, where they tried to make hash browns for breakfast. Unfortunately, the food turned out mediocre enough that Magnus was pretty sure their elf toddler could have done a better job even with his tiny hands, but that was fine. Magnus didn’t need fancy food. 

He was also fascinated by Barry. When they’d first met two decades ago, Magnus wasn’t so sure how well he’d get along with someone that much older than him, but Barry was chill. He was nervous in a laid back sort of way. He had plenty of patience for answering all of Magnus’s questions, and he had enough experience and expertise to speak up even when the others (re: the twins) were making fun of him. 

This Barry, though. Oh ho, this Barry was different. 

This Barry wore his nervousness like a pair of jeans-- perfect fit and never removed. He practically vibrated with energy, he stuttered, he called Dad’n’port ‘ _sir,_ ’ and Davenport’s eye twitched a little every time it happened. This Barry stared slack jawed at things around the ship and didn’t have know-it-all answers for everything, and he laughed and jumped instantly into the game when Magnus told him to try and throw fruit into his mouth from across the table. 

This Barry was also being quite effectively bullied by a second grader, and Magnus thought it was absolutely hilarious. 

He was trying to help obviously, but Taako moved pretty quickly from distressed to teasing, and so long as he wasn’t upset Magnus wasn’t too worried about it. At one point, Taako came up and shoved at Magnus’s arm and asked, “How can we really know it’s Barry?” 

Magnus squinted at Barry for a moment, who was blushing and frowning and stuffing his hands into his pockets, and he said, “I dunno, I think he looks like Barry.”

Taako snorted and said, “No he doesn’t. Barry’s fat and wears glasses.”

Barry’s jaw had dropped at that, and he snapped, “Hey!” and Taako took off like a shot, laughing to himself and squirreling off somewhere to keep himself busy. Magnus tried his hardest not to laugh, but when Barry caught his eye he couldn’t help it anymore. 

“Oh fuck you,” Barry had said, and socked him on the shoulder, and Magnus decided that he _really_ liked having this weird young Barry around.

They spent some time in the lab earlier in the day. Magnus drew on the chalkboards that covered every flat surface in the room, while Barry sifted through notes and files with an increasingly frustrated air about him. After a good bout of reading and sighing and grumbling, Barry startled Magnus out of his doodle-stupor by shoving the notebook off of the desk, dropping his head heavily on the table top, and sighing like he was dying.

He spoke, voice muffled against the resin, “I just want to have, like, _any_ idea of what is going on here, y’know?” 

“Man, I’ll drink to that,” Magnus agreed, and Barry cracked a smile. 

They decided to follow through on that idea later in the evening, and in Magnus’s defense, it was totally Barry’s fault. 

Just a little while after lunchtime, Taako had emerged from wherever he’d been playing alone and stood silently at Barry’s side until Barry looked down, noticed him, and jumped out of his skin. 

“Um,” he had said. “Hi.” 

Taako rolled his eyes and balled his hands up in the sweater he was wearing. He glanced backwards, and Magnus followed his gaze to find Davenport standing in the doorway, and then Taako sighed heavily and looked back at Barry. 

He said, “Davenport says that if I’m nice to you he’ll let me go in the woods.” 

“Um,” Barry said. “Okay?” 

“I have to apologize for being mean and ask you three questions to get to know you,” Taako reported, tone of voice suggesting he found the whole thing absolutely ridiculous as he counted the tasks out on his fingers. Magnus glanced back at Davenport and raised his eyebrows, and Davenport stared back with the tired eyes of a man in war. 

Taako continued. “So I’m sorry for calling you fat and making fun of your hair--” 

“You made fun of my hair?” 

“Only to Merle, he thought it was funny.” Davenport cleared his throat, and Taako sighed again, shoulders sagging. He fiddled with the sleeve of his sweater for a moment before asking, “Why don’t you remember us, if you’re the same Barry?” 

Barry glanced sideways at Magnus, then at Davenport, then down at the kid. He said, “Um… magic, I think.” 

Taako nodded sagely, like that was an acceptable answer. He asked, “What’s your favorite movie?” 

Barry thought for a moment, then said, “Fantasy Dirty Dancing.” Magnus choked on the laugh that flew out of him, while Davenport dropped his forehead into his palm, and Taako wrinkled his nose up. 

“Gross,” he said. “How old are you?” 

It looked like Barry was terribly uncomfortable with the mini interrogation, especially now that Magnus was laughing at him. He scratched the back of his neck and said, “Nineteen, but like… I’m supposed to be forty-something,” and Taako’s eyes grew wide, and slowly his face lit up. 

He beamed up at Barry and said, “Now wait’a minute! You’re not much older than me!” 

Barry started to say something, stammering out a, “Uh, well, I think human ages are a bit…” while Taako laughed and beamed up at Magnus, like this was incredible news. Then a question fell onto his face. 

He asked, “ _Wait_ . How old are _you?_ ” and when Magnus told him, Taako giggled like the happiest little boy in the world. 

“You’re both just babies!” he cheered, and Magnus held back a laugh while he crouched down to get on eye-level. 

“Hold on, I thought you _weren’t_ a baby,” he argued, reaching out to poke Taako in the stomach, because somewhere between twenty and seventeen Taako had gotten a lot more comfortable with the idea of being touched. True to it, Taako’s only response was batting Magnus’s hand away and then grabbing onto his wrist, just to hang onto it. 

He said, “I’m not cause I’m an elf, but you’re only two decades old, you’re _babies_.” When Magnus stood and raised his arm up, slowly, Taako held on tight and let himself be lifted. He hung on like Magnus was a set of monkey bars, and he kicked his legs around idly while Magnus swung him over to Davenport and deposited him back on the floor. 

He said, “Don’t you have a field trip to be going on or something?” while Taako got a hold of his arm and tried to climb up him again. Magnus allowed it, giving him a boost until he’d clambered all the way up to Magnus’s shoulder, and then he kept a hand on him to make sure the kid didn’t go toppling off backwards. While this was happening, Davenport spoke. 

“We’ll want to be going soon if you’d like to spend a few hours outside,” he said. “Would either of you like to come with? Barry?” 

Magnus was about to agree when he noticed a crease form between Davenport’s eyebrows, and Barry’s response came a bit too slow and a bit slurred. He said, “No, I, uh… I think I need to sit down.” 

He took an unsteady step towards the sofa, swaying a bit as he did so, and in a movement that Magnus is genuinely proud of he managed to safely set Taako back on the ground and get to Barry’s side just before he collapsed. This cycle was turning into a sort of blitzkrieg dexterity training session, and Magnus earned himself a point by catching Barry as he passed out and easing him only a little clumsily down onto the couch. 

Davenport was already shouting for Merle, and Barry groaned, pained, as his body jolted and a familiar red specter rose out of him. Taako gasped, trying to touch it before it floated up and through the ceiling, and then Barry was stirring back into consciousness, looking just a little bit different, blinking slowly, and rubbing his head. 

“What?” he croaked. “What was that?”

He tried to sit back up, but swayed alarmingly as he did so, and Magnus grabbed his shoulders and pulled him back down. “Take it easy,” he said. “Give it a minute, you just got ghost blasted.” 

He ran his fingers through Barry’s hair, because Barry looked about two seconds from freaking out, and Magnus wasn’t sure if it was that action or something he said that caused Barry’s face to heat up in an embarrassed glowing red. Merle came into the room a few seconds later, and he took over from there. 

Barry patiently bore Merle’s assessment, letting Merle measure him and look him over, answering questions and only looking slightly off-put by the jokes Merle made. The check up wasn’t terribly extensive. Before, _Barry_ had been the one running the tests and trying to figure out the magic behind Taako’s condition. But now Barry didn’t remember that, and he was the one shrinking. Besides, he’d slowly been running out of steam with that as each test he did only gave them a list of new questions that needed answers. 

It wasn’t long before Merle decided he was good to go, and it wasn’t long after that Barry convinced Davenport he really was _fine_ probably, and that he and Taako should just go. Magnus agreed, saying “I’ll keep an eye on him.” 

Davenport acquiesced at that. He said, “Alright, fine. Behave yourselves.” 

He planted the ship down on the ground, and Merle decided to join him and Taako on their hiking trip. Magnus waved at them as they left, then turned to find Barry sitting on the couch with his head in his hands, staring wide eyed at the floor like he was in the middle of some kind of crisis. 

He said, “Are you… are you okay there, dude?” and Barry raised his eyes slowly to look at him. 

“No,” he said plainly, and then, “Is there any booze on this ship?” 

* * *

Davenport had lived through better days. 

He’d lived through worse, of course, it would be ridiculous to claim that a day spent wrangling youths was the _worst_ day of his entire life. It wasn’t terrible. It was just that, by the time he’d finally turned in for the evening, he was ready to sleep until the day the Hunger arrived. 

It had been a late night and an early morning, and his wishes for an early bedtime this evening had been pretty thoroughly shattered by Barry and Magnus’s shenanigans while he was away. He and Merle finally corralled Taako back onto the ship just a little late for supper, he was shocked to hear boisterous, melodic voices ringing through the closed door of the Starblaster. He and Merle shared a shrug before following Taako, who’d already gone running inside, and they found Barry and Magnus-- sprawled out on the common room floor, a forgotten card game between them, a nearly emptied bottle of… something tipped over and spilling onto the floor, singing along clumsily to Fantasy Mamma Mia, which was playing on the screen.

Magnus was shirtless. Barry had his face pressed into Magnus’s neck and was laughing himself to tears. When Davenport walked in both young men froze in place, staring at him with wide eyes. Magnus reached out, very slowly, trying to subtly nudge the empty alcohol bottle out of view, which set Barry off into snickering, which set the both of them off into hysterical, howling laughter. 

Davenport elected to kill them in the morning. After a good deal of coercing, he finally got Merle to cast silence on the common room and roped him in to helping put Taako to bed. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich would just have to be a good enough supper, and Taako didn’t seem to mind at all. He ate half of it and then nearly fell asleep at the table, so Davenport shooed him off to bed and cast a final scathing glare at the two drunk fools in the common room before turning in for bed himself. 

He admitted that his feelings might be disproportionately harsh, which was why he was going to sleep on it and deal with it in the morning. It’s not like the crew had never gotten drunk before. For the gods’ sakes, they’d been running from the hunger for seventeen years now. That would be an incredible period of abstinence for the people on board.

It was just that, the crew had never been this young before. Davenport wasn’t going to admit it to anyone-- because it was not anyone else’s worry to deal with, and the last thing he needed while his crew was already in turmoil was to add to their anxieties-- but it was distressing to have their chief science officer turned into a co-ed. 

It had been distressing to lose Taako, but that had seemed like an isolated incident. They had still had Barry, who’d dedicated all of his time to keeping things under control and trying to solve the problem at hand. With his work there, they could handle it. Now Barry was eighteen-- barely old enough to drink, certainly not old enough to do _any_ of his previous job-- and the majority of the information they’d had for solving this problem was lost, scattered in Barry’s illegible notes and lost somewhere in his mind. 

So they had lost their scientist and one of their arcanists, both of who were getting younger by the minute, the consequences of which Davenport did not have the energy to think about. Lup and Lucretia were still planet side, wrapped up with the oligarchs in some sort of scandal Davenport couldn’t even begin to understand. They were running out of time to find the light. They were running out of time to save this world. They were… 

Davenport had lived through better days, was the thing. 

But all of that worry wouldn’t do him any good now, he reminded himself, as he forced himself to breathe and count and tap out the mindfulness exercises he used to pull his emotions back under control. If he wanted tomorrow to be better, he would need to start with some rest. He could start again in the morning.

At least, that is what he told himself. 

He was nearly successful in that pursuit, managing to lull himself to sleep and reach deep, comforting REM sleep before he was jerked suddenly back into consciousness. 

He was asleep, and then he wasn’t, and he lurched up in bed with a gasp and wide panicked eyes, half convinced that the Hunger was upon them and it was time to _run_. But when he did a quick sweep of the room he found it motionless, dark, quiet. Save for the small figure standing a few feet away, hands drawn in to his chest like he’d quite recently been reaching out, eyes wide and worried and lip trembling. 

Oh. 

_Oh._

“Are you okay?” Davenport asked, words coming out choked and parched. There was a canister of water on the night table. He grabbed it and took a sip, noticing how Taako’s cautious eyes tracked his movements dutifully. Right. Of course. He moved slowly. 

“I… I just… I didn’t mean…” His voice was too small. He was shaking. Davenport found his blood broiling at the forces that had placed them here, and while he ached for something to fight and bring to justice… well, it was only three in the morning. 

Davenport said, “It’s alright,” though Taako didn’t look convinced. He asked, “Nightmare?” and got an embarrassed, hesitant nod. 

Big thing to admit, Davenport thought to himself. Taako wasn’t known for possessing great levels of humility, full grown or otherwise. Davenport wondered about what to do, about what would be respectful of grown Taako’s wishes, what would be appropriate for the small child in front of him right now. 

He figured, eventually, that if Taako came out of this remembering anything, he would just have to suck it up and get over it. For now, he was little and scared and there were only so many options. 

Davenport scooted over in bed. He separated the stacked pillows he slept propped up upon, setting one aside to share, and lifted the blanket up. “You can sleep here,” he said. “It’s alright.” 

And Taako hesitated, He chewed on the sleeve of his sweater and rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet and stared at Davenport like he was studying something new and dangerous. And then a wind blew outside, and up on deck the antenna creaked slightly, and Taako nearly leapt out of his skin in his haste to climb into bed and hide under the covers. 

“It’s okay,” Davenport told him, taking care to make space between them as he tucked Taako in and settled down on his half of the bed. “Everything is safe, okay?” 

“Sure,” Taako answered, and he didn’t sound convinced, but it wasn’t too many minutes after that Davenport noticed his breathing even out as he drifted back off into sleep. 

_Good_ , he thought to himself, and forced himself to relax. There was still plenty of time to rest, and they would have a normal and productive day tomorrow. Everything would be fine, he told himself as he started to drift off. 

And it wasn’t even forty-five minutes later when a fast, panicked knock came to Davenport’s door, startling him once again out of sleep as Taako slid out of bed and went to tug the door open. The room flooded with light from the hallway, and there in the doorway stood a silhouette dripping with rain, with a halo of curly hair and large glasses reflecting light like two owl’s eyes. She panted, leaning against the door as if she’d ran all the way here, and Lucretia spoke over Taako’s head to say, “Dav’n’port, I think something happened to Lup.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> every character in this fic having anxiety? it's more likely than you think. it's called projection, babey.
> 
> 1\. if you want me to write out Magnus and Barry getting drunk together, I will. I LOVE writing about drunk people. It's one of my favorites. It just... didn't seem necessary for the pace of this chapter.
> 
> 2\. also, I really mean it this time. I mean it. One more chapter, and then the BIg SHaBANG. I had more fun with baby Barry than I was anticipating, and we needed to play in that space a little bit longer. now we're ready to move on.


End file.
